 all the seed to the background. Great, welcome everybody to housing, general housing and military affairs. Today we're gonna be concentrating on housing and quite directly to what's next. The state did yeoman work in getting 1500 Vermonters who were previously home was off the streets at least temporarily and from congregate settings which we knew at the very beginning would be a really important vector of potential COVID-19 just getting into the system and possibly decimating that population. The state and along with all the partners and housing partners some of them were here today did an incredible amount of work getting them off the streets into various motels across the state. And I think last week we heard from or the week before last actually now we heard from Commissioner Schatz and from Eileen Peltier who was representing the Washington and Orange County Rapid Response Team. And at that time, the testimony was that the true number of homeless folks in the state of Vermont has come down around 1500 of which upwards of 300 are children. And I think in all of the different committees whether it's education, healthcare, our committee, human services we've been discussing what the possible effects of the pandemic are gonna be on these populations and how we're gonna deal with it. Now of course, trying to find homes for the homeless has long been a goal of our committee. And I think of those same committees because we know that getting people into a stable home living situation is healthier. And at least the initial month or so since everybody's been in or six weeks that everybody's been in housing we've seen some positive benefits but we also know that depending on how long this goes we have to be prepared for what I call the short and medium and long-term solutions and contemplate what's in front of us and understand it. And we had asked or we had kind of planted seeds with Commissioner Schatz that we were gonna need some hard numbers about what's been spent and how we've done this so far but I wanted to start this conversation in perhaps a somewhat broader sense and bring in representatives from the housing groups. And we've met them all except for Elizabeth. I think Elizabeth you may have come to the VHCB day but it's a pleasure to have you here to really get an understanding of what is in front of us in the eyes of the folks who are on the front lines. So with that I'm just gonna kick it over to Chris, Donnelly to kind of start on our website. There are some documents that were presented that were provided as memos that really start the conversation and try to give a, I don't know what the right term is if it's a ballpark figure or if it's a framework which we think we might need to move forward and there's suggestions in there that we'll talk about today. So we'll go to Chris first and then we will pop over to and I see representative Wood has joined us from Human Services, that's awesome, welcome. And Chris if you would like to start and then we'll go just down the list of the witnesses that we do have, thank you. Yes, well thank you for having me today and for the record my name is Chris Donnelly with the Champlain Housing Trust. You all can hear me okay? Yes. Great. I'll echo what the chair said to start off with and that's just a deep appreciation for the work and the fast and smart work that the administration did to get people out of places where there was no possibility for social distancing and into some temporary housing. I think, well I know we've saved lives because of it and that's very much appreciated and I think Vermont has been doing better partly because of this. There are a lot of other heroes in our communities, we hear about the medical professionals, the grocery staffers, the folks that are working on the front lines of the nonprofit sector. My family goes out and begs cuts on the porch every night at seven to thank them. And we know that a lot of Vermonters are staying home and sacrificing a lot, making huge sacrifices to address the pandemic. The reason I'm here is because there are thousands of Vermonters that either don't have a home or a temporary home or at risk of losing their home because of the pandemic. The coronavirus really exposed not just that we have economic inequities, we know that, we've been living with those for years but what the pandemic really exposed was the fact that these economic inequities are a public health risk. It just laid bare the well intention but inadequate social safety net that we have and if it has not been clear before it's abundantly clear now that housing is healthcare and we have to do something to house more people. So I have a proposal to share that's up online. If I, maybe I should put it up, should I put it up so people can see? Yeah, can we try to share if you can share the screen? I'm making Chris a co-host so he can share the screen. Okay, oops. Or Ron, you could just put up the, no, I should drive it. So this proposal that we'll share is, There you go. Yeah. So this was developed by CHT and Housing Fermat in collaboration with housing nonprofits across the state it's our best thinking, but that said, as the chair suggested, this is the start of a conversation. And things, we're in a period where things are still changing rapidly. We don't know what the economy is going to be like in three months. We don't know if there's gonna be another spike in illness. So this is our best thinking today but we know that we need to adapt and so forth moving forward. So, and others may have other ideas for this in terms of the response, I'm sure that they do. This memo is divided into three different sections and we tried to be realistic with our numbers and based some on things that we knew and then we made some projections out. The first section talks about rental assistance. We know that low income renters are having a hard time making their rent payments and paying for all their other bills. We, in an ideal world, the unemployment that they receive and other supports that they receive if they can apply for three squares, what have you will make them whole but we know that that's just not gonna be the case. And so we think the state should create a rental assistance pool to support the lowest income from owners. This should include mobile home owners as well and more people in mobile home parks. As a network, we evaluated what our rent loss was in April and across that network we're projecting about eight to 10% loss in rent due to COVID in April. April was a month where many people worked half the month so we think this is going to get worse and we think it will be increasing to as much as 20 or 25% rent loss by the middle of the summer, June and July. And then it should peter off as the economy starts coming back. Those are a lot of unknowns but when we've project out over our portfolio, not just CHT but the whole housing network we did this with Housing Vermont. We see just a tsunami of hardship in our renters. So at the risk of doing any math in public which I've cautioned all sorts of other people not to do, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna skip to the end of this memo. And so what we did was we looked at, we got a number from VHCB on a nonprofit portfolio about 1,100, a little bit more apartments in our portfolio. We assume that it's not just our tenants that are having a hard time, they're across the state. So we just put a ballpark number here for another 10,000 homes. These numbers I'm sure people have different opinions on or we may wanna expand or contract them but if we project out this loss of rent over the next nine months, it adds up to close to $25 million. And so we're recommending that the state use some of the CARES Act funding to create a rent pool, a rental assistance pool to address this need. This is a little bit like not quite but the state has set up these surge facilities. The Essex Fairgrounds is now as a hospital. This is the type of thing where we want to make sure that there's enough money there to support people. We hope we don't need to use it but we assume that there will be approximately this much in need. I don't know if we wanna pause at the end of each one of the sections that I go through and answer questions about them or if I should go through all three before we. No, let's go through all three. Okay, thank you. I wanna jump to the last one because I think the middle one may have the most questions and that really gets to what you were speaking to before Representative Stevens. So we all know about the three-legged stool in the housing, we need the capital, we need the rental subsidy, we need supportive services. We are finding, especially in our nonprofit portfolio, the pandemic has really stressed a lot of our low-income renters, some of the most vulnerable folks that we serve in the state and keep house. So we're recommending that there's funding to add social work capacity. We're suggesting 25 new social workers for the nonprofit and housing authority network. We also know that there will be a second kind of economic impact will be people unable to pay their mortgages and we want to ensure that there's staffing to provide that kind of assistance to counseling assistance for people that are having a difficult time with their mortgages. We also feel that there's, and let me skip to the budget part real quick. This is in the bottom here, the three, housing first has been a model that's worked very well. We put a place over here for more housing first services. And then the nonprofit sector has been at the front line of the pandemic from all the prep work all the way through to today and will be involved in recovery and economic stimulus too. And that is really stressing our operations to be not turning upside down to address these needs of the state. So we're looking for some capacity support to help do this. I will note that there have been some funders. VHTV is just providing a capacity grant for the nonprofit network and our name works national partners have provided some funding. So we're getting some funding to manage in the short term, but this is gonna be a long-term recovery we fear. So I'll move to the middle portion here, which is really the tough nut to crack. And I think this is where a lot of people are gonna have many different ideas to solve this. So the other night there were actually 1,700 people in Motowns across the state, over 400 in Chattanooga County. There are social workers now I think at all the hotels to help work with people to identify what their needs are and whether they've been entered into the HMIS database, which the state manages and the continuance manage. So we know where people are and what their needs are. 250 kids are among those 1,700 folks. The proposal that we have is to create this bridge so that we can get to a permanent housing solution for almost all of these households. And what we are proposing is that in some communities where there is vacancy, not in my neck of the woods and not in Elizabeth, I don't think in her area, but in other parts of the state there may be some vacancy that a housing voucher and social services combined can help move people out of Motowns and into housing. So we're proposing that we think around 600 of these households can be moved into permanent housing with that fix. We are proposing to create 400 new units that are either converted nursing homes or a long-term stay, extended stay motels where in conversations in different parts of the state with different owners of properties to see how we can move from this temporary motel-based program to something that's a bridge to permanent housing. And so that will take some capital investment upfront, either do a master lease or to do a purchase and some minor rehab. But it'll also take some rental assistance and some service support. So I'll skip to the budget on this one. So we're looking, as you see there in number two, we're looking at using some of this money to support 600 new apartments and new vouchers for existing apartments. We're looking for 400 new units in new buildings, not new buildings, existing buildings that we could purchase the capital for this as well as subsidy and then services that go along with it. These are, we're envisioning, there's gonna have to be a stop gap first. You know, we're not gonna get this up and running by May 16th. So we're looking, we're just talking to the administration about how we're going to address these short-term needs, but this hopefully can be the bridge that we can then move towards permanent housing. And these properties may be the type of thing where we use them as a transitional, as people, as we can build new housing and the economic stimulus comes through down the road. So it could be up to a three-year process. The issue that I will flag for you that is the huge flaw in this whole proposal is that the COVID dollars need to be spent by the end of the year. Much of this support is on an annual basis and it will create needs down the road to provide subsidy for people. And that's something that we're gonna have to grapple with. We are gonna need to have some state support or some federal support to make sure that the subsidy in place and services in place for people so that we don't end up putting people out on the streets again in the end of the year. So I'll just lay it out a lot. I'll pause there and happy to answer questions or add to any of them. Yeah, I have one hand up, but I wanna, before I have representative Tran or join in, first of all, I wanna welcome, I see several other members of the Human Services Committee have also joined us today. So welcome. Chris, when you talk about vouchers 10 years ago, the federal government cut nearly 1,000 section eight vouchers from our federal dollars. And over the 10 years, we've maybe seen, we've maybe reclaimed a couple hundred of them at best. But when we're talking about vouchers here, are we talking about trying to get this from the federal government or are we trying to expand the statewide voucher program that came out of that, which was a temporary 12 month voucher that was our state equivalent of the section eight? I think there's a, well, either. I think it's a fair answer. The state had created a first a half million and then expanded it to a million dollar pool for a state voucher program. There is a federal election between now and next year. So we don't know what the priorities of the next administration is going to be, if it's going to be the same as the current one or new. So I think there may be opportunity, but we have a lot of costs involved in not housing people as a state. We have a lot of Medicaid costs. We have other medical costs and other social services costs that go into and putting people in motels when it's cold, that we're spending already as a state. So we could redirect that money and cover some of the costs as well. I know there was a proposal on the table before the pandemic hit to restructure the way that the general assistance program went. I think those conversations have got to probably have to be put on hold. But there has been discussion about how do we reallocate the dollars better. Thank you. Your representative Trina. And again, for members of the Human Services Committee who are joining us, if you would like to ask a question, feel free to raise your hand, the blue hand on Zoom and folks, just remember that it's easier for you to unmute yourself than it is for me too. So just a reminder, so we're gonna go right over to Representative Triano. Yes, can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So I have a couple of questions and a comment. Chris, on section three, we've discussed a lot and S333 it will hopefully accommodate mortgage payments as far as putting a stay on any foreclosures in the court and having it consistent around the state. But I've been talking somewhat about this and it's on my mind. We have to also consider property taxes. Now, if you have a mortgage on your, that means you're a property owner and therefore have property taxes. Now, in light of the inability to pay a mortgage or property taxes, we find our municipalities in a situation in which they're not getting revenue in, school budgets and municipal budgets are probably going to be hitting crisis level at some point in this period of time. So I just have to make it known. I mean, if you are in arrears for a year or two on your property taxes and you can't pay this year because of being out of work as a result of COVID, the possibilities of the town putting your property up for sale is very realistic if you already have arrears. So it's been on my mind. No one's really talking about it. It hasn't been discussed a lot. I've brought it up a few times. Maybe we should be thinking in terms of low interest loans or no interest loans to municipalities to cover these shortfallings in their property taxes. So that's just a comment I wanted to make. My question is where are the social workers that are working with the motel house, the voucher house individuals now? Are they from social services, DCF, do you know? I believe that they are working through the CAP agencies but I'm not positive. Okay. And do we know how many of the folks at the 1700 that you spoke about today are chronically homeless? Those folks that have been living for years and tens outside of Burlington and they're about, do we have a number on that Chris? I don't have a number on that. I can get you that though, I can get you that. That's it, thank you. One thing I will say that we do know just in, I just heard this this morning that of the roughly 400 households in the Burlington area that are being put up that found 187 were not in the system. So these are kind of what we might call new homeless people. Maybe people that have been doubled up or otherwise not engaged with social service. So I think the scope of the problem we knew was bigger than the annual point in time count. And this is really showing it. Thank you, Chris. I mean, if it's, if over 1600 or close to 1700 which is a higher number than we received two weeks ago is the accurate number. That's fully, that's more than 50% more than what the point in time count showed over the last couple of years. I think we topped out at like 1200 or so one year. Representative Byron. Thank you. Chris, you mentioned before that obviously there was going to be annual support costs carrying costs to these. Do you have any idea what that might look like as a year over year, year over year expense? Yep. So if you, if you look at the spreadsheet that's up and see in the smack in the middle of the page where it says subsidy costs annual. I think you would probably like to be seen chair. Those three points coming down. So this is 9.2. Yep. Okay. So those three subsidy costs, those are got you. So that's. And then if you, and then the section three when you're talking about social workers and housing first services, those would likely be annual. And I'm noticing a flaw in the calculation for the social workers that that's a nine month number, not a 12 month number. Okay. So like floating around in that sort of like 10 or 11 million dollar a year range. Yeah, somewhere somewhere in there, probably. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm seeing subsidies plus subsidies plus social services are going to be closer to the 14 probably higher because the, like you said that's a nine month number. Yep. Okay. Representative Kalecki. Thank you. Chris, thanks for coming to talk to us today. A small thing, then I just a bigger question that of the 1600 plus people, do you know how many of those are children? 250. 250. Okay. And in this $106 million is your understanding that the 100% of this can come from the care act or that the state has to also put in additional dollars. So I'm clear. I understand about future years, but what about this current budget? I think that all of these costs would be eligible for cares act funding. If we spend the money by, if we incur the cost before December 31st. Okay. They're eligible expenses. All right. By my reading of the memo. No, but I do. We may need to be creative in and how those costs are encouraged. For example, if we wanted to do a year long social work, we want to do social work for a year long. We may need to make that a grant to the nonprofit as opposed to paying the salary for 12 months. Okay. Thank you, Chris. Does that make sense? And just while I have the microphone, someone else is not, should be muted because we were hearing a female voice as well. So just check to make sure you're muted. Thank you. It's Mary best. No, that was me on the mute. My apologies. So next, good job. Representative Clark, are you all set? Okay. Representative Redmond. Thanks very much, Tom. A question, Chris, about the May 15th end of the state of emergency. Our understanding is that the hotels go away at that point is, I mean, do you have any concerns about mobilizing this? Like the timeframe of that, like that's a couple of weeks away. And I'm just curious, like, what's the immediate plan? And maybe there isn't one, but that's my question. Is there an immediate plan when that state of emergency goes away? And then my other question is you mentioned converted nursing home as a possibility for permanent housing. And boy, that got me thinking outside of the box in terms of possibilities. And I wonder what other creative solutions you're looking at and how we can kind of funnel those ideas and possibilities in communities to you. Thanks. Yeah, thanks. So the May 15th deadline, I know that the administration is focused on this. I can't believe that they're just going to open the doors and send people out to the streets again without a plan. So, again, the work that they've done so far has saved lives and I know that they're on this. So I don't think this, we need the capital to all of a sudden, like just buy a bunch of property and put people in. But I do think there will be a structured plan to move people through what we need to do in the mid to longer term though, is come up with a plan to make sure that we're not putting people back into shelters and into tents. And so we have confidence that the state is a partner in this. They've been a partner all along and we're gonna be working with them. The reason we came up with this plan and we put it out was because we feel that urgency. We really feel the urgency that we need to get this ball rolling. We've been talking about this issue for weeks now. And as you say, it's time is coming. In terms of property, there are different opportunities in different parts of the state. Some places may have dorms. They may be elder care facilities that have vacant. So we're open to whatever. We do feel like the properties need to be near services, near bus lines and that kind of thing when you're getting into Chittany County especially. But we're open to whatever ideas people have. We have some property in mind but we're not quite ready to move on it. Chris, last question from me before I move over to Maura. When you say capital for new homes, one time cost, is that the matching fund, is that the equivalent of what you would need if it were property transfer tax money or housing conservation fund type money where it would be used to match? Or is this the actual, is this the actual outlay for the amount of spaces that you would need? Or is this the money that would then be turned into something larger? Good question. We think that this will be cheaper than creating a brand new apartment which can run $275,000, but it will probably take on debt. So it will be more, so the COVID relief fund capital will be $175 per apartment or per unit. And then we think there'll be another 25 to 35, 40,000 dollars and debt that will take on that can be supported by the rent. Okay. So slightly, so a different funding model than what we're used to, but more traditional in terms of need to take on. Sorry, we don't think this is the timing we'll work for using tax credits, federal tax credits. No, thank you for that clarification. All right, thank you. Any further questions for Chris before we move to Maura Collins? All right, thank you, Chris. And Maura, if you are ready to go, if you would like to unmute yourself, the microphone is yours. Great, hi, good morning. I'm Maura Collins, I'm the director of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. We really appreciate you inviting me to be here with you today, especially the expanded audience of not just one committee, but two. And I support what Chris just said and what I believe Elizabeth and Gus are going to say after me, we do have real common agreement between not only the state's affordable housing providers, but also advocates to alleviate poverty, social service providers, shelter providers we've been talking with, and I think the state administration that there's agreement that the situation we face today is untenable and unsustainable. And I'm also hearing from all the conversations I've had, that there's broad agreement that we can and should do better. We've had several 10-year plans to end homelessness in our state. A couple of years ago, several of us worked together to create a roadmap to end homelessness that quantified the needs and costs of transforming our system of care. So we know what it would take to do this and we've all worked together to imagine that together. And I was gonna add up the number of meetings that our agencies and partners all attend that meet either on a local weekly basis, a bimonthly basis, statewide monthly or quarterly basis that are all dedicated to this topic. But I realized that if I truly added up all those meetings and hours and drive times and people sitting around tables, it would show what an inefficient system we have now when we rely so heavily on congregate shelter settings and people to fend for themselves to navigate systems of care and the high costs that that has to our public systems. And each time we make a plan and write a document and have these meetings, it's frustrating because in my opinion, we usually end up falling short and we fall back to what's possible instead of what we should be doing. And what's possible is always a step better than what we've had before. So we're right to celebrate those successes because as an example before this pandemic in early March and February, we had hundreds of Vermonters living in congregate shelter settings. And that was a small step better than leaving them outside through the winter and potentially risking death in that environment. And then the small step better went from shelters where we realized the potential public health danger and the risk there. And so we moved them into hotels and motels because it was one small step better than exposing them and others to the health risks of COVID-19. And I expect that a month or two from now we'll applaud ourselves for only refilling our shelters maybe halfway. And that will be better than having everyone go back to full shelter capacity. We're not wrong in knowing that every step along the way we're doing better. And I do, I have studied public policy. I know the theories of incrementalism but there also are times in our state's history when we've been forced to do something different and we've risen to that occasion too. And I think that now is the time for that. We saw it after Tropical Storm Irene. No one wanted that state hospital to flood. Those 50 some odd individuals were patients at the time. I can't imagine the trauma they went through both by being currently hospitalized and then to have to be scattered throughout the state. I believe I heard at night move to another situation and to continue out their care then in a different setting. That was not what any of us wanted. And yet now we have a community-based mental health system that I would argue has so many flaws but is still better than what we had before when we were using institutional setting of having everyone in one state hospital. So while we can do better, we must do better and now is the time. So I have a handout that I submitted to Ron that's on your website that lays out some of the standards that I am hoping you all will push to strive for as you look to fund and programmatically respond to our future homeless solutions. So again, I'm in full support. This isn't something different than what Chris is saying. These are more characteristics and best practices that I hope the state will not take their eyes off the prize of when they look to build the future state of homelessness in this state. So first, just to put in front of you, if you haven't seen it before, I'm sure the agency human services, I know they've testified to you before and they will again but they have a priority, a stated document that says what their affordable housing priorities are and they prioritize permanent housing. That's permanent housing in our lexicon doesn't mean emergency shelter, it doesn't mean transitional housing but when they are looking at affordable housing they're looking at permanent housing that's affordable to those earning the lowest incomes and that accommodates the needs of AHS clients which are often overlapping needs such as poverty, family instability, disabilities and substance use. But then they go farther and to give preference and really look for housing that is targeting the most vulnerable, those that use evidence-based best practices eliminate unnecessary barriers, that's where you get into that housing first model that are centrally located which supports what the housers are already doing with their smart growth criteria and reliance on downtown development but integrated with market rate and other apartments and looks to preserve individual dignity and choice. These are key components that will have to be remembered as you build forward your future system. And so yes, is it possible that we will have to look because we can't solve this problem within the next six weeks, will the state need to look at potentially short-term leasing a motel in a community because there's no room at the shelter to put people in a congregate setting that may have to be a very short-term solution but we can't be satisfied that that's the permanent solution. If we start buying motels and warehousing people in congregate settings like that long-term we're going to lose what we gained by this opportunity that we have of moving people into permanent supported housing. The next few things on my handout are quite literally, and I have the link at the bottom. This is a direct quote from a federal government sponsor and study that talks about what permanent supported housing is. So these are not my words. These are words from an evidence-based best practice manual on this. And so when you look at the key elements of permanent supported housing it looks to things that really are pushing us to do some things in the housing world that make us uncomfortable, that leases are in the tenant's name and that they have full rights of tenancy, that there aren't additional provisions that aren't in other people's leases. If they're paying the rent and following the normal lease provisions people should be allowed to stay there. Services have to be voluntary and housing shouldn't be time limited, like I said, where it's emergency or transitional housing, but it should be permanent. And people should be treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve that all the other tenants in some housing have. So I really, VHFA has promoted permanent housing in the federal and state tax credits and loan dollars that we put out. We also highly prefer and promote integrated housing where only a small portion of a building is occupied by people who are currently coming from homelessness because that integration shows that there are better outcomes for those tenants and that building overall. But there also needs to be choice in the services and that needs change over time and that those services have to be able to come and go. And a lot of times it's best when the services offered can and should probably be coordinated by the housing provider and some kind of resident service coordination or services like the SASH model are wonderful for coordinating services. But when you come to the in-depth services that a lot of our homeless households may need they should probably be provided by a service agency because it is hard for a tenant to, it's hard for a tenant to really separate the different people who work for one organization. And so it is a best practice to know that I pay my landlord and that's that relationship but my mental health care or my therapeutic services or my case management is coming from a different organization because it is very hard to establish the true level of trust in this therapeutic and social service relationship. If I also know that they're gonna rat me out because I was a hundred bucks short on my rent this month. And so that gets really delicate and in a perfect world, those are separate. But I am realistic and maybe young but I am old enough to know that we don't live in a perfect world and this isn't always possible but I wanted to put these best practices in front of you and take a minute to highlight them so that you know to keep asking questions and pushing on folks with solutions to ensure that we're following these best practices as much as we can. This will be a cost savings. You can see at the bottom of page two of my handout that the cost of permanent support housing even in Vermont this was done a few years ago in that roadmap to end homelessness. The cost is just a fraction of what inpatient hospitalization especially psychiatric hospitalization costs the state. And so this is a cost effective model. So while Chris's numbers may make our eyes bulge because these are big dollars that we're talking about we have to realize that having the courage to make investments like this now will save the state money long-term. So it's possible to do what I'm talking about within the framework of what Chris laid out and what I expect Gus and Elizabeth are going to speak to. The nonprofit partners are perfectly situated to be the primary delivery mechanism for the solution. For the past five years we've seen them commit at least 15% of their existing portfolios of housing to people who are formerly homeless in their apartments that they've already been managing. On top of that or as a part of that over that same time VHFA has been committing 25% of our most valuable funding that's the competitive federal tax credits. We've been ensuring that applicants for that are committing that 25% of the buildings that they've been building and rehabbing with that money have been targeting currently homeless households with those resources. And I know VHCB and the state through DHCD has been using their funding to also support projects like the big renovation project of the largest homeless support agency in Brattleboro Groundworks Collaborative and other homeless related projects. So there's a lot of examples of where the state in different affordable housing ways has been addressing homelessness. And it's important to know though, that as Chris mentioned, the needs of renters goes beyond those currently living in affordable housing. And he talked about those who also live in public housing authority owned buildings as well as affordable housing operated by private for-profit owners. And while those renters are facing the same challenges as the renters in the nonprofit housing, those partners of PHAs and private for-profits may be a part of the solution as well. It's going to need to house these folks, we're going to have to have all hands on deck. And so I'm looking forward to a solution that can involve the state's effort to rehab rental housing and sort of build back some of our under-invested communities and using some of that housing and the scattered site model because not everything we do has to be in congregate larger buildings, but we can look at that complemented with other solutions that will meet the needs of all of our communities. So that's the end of my testimony. I'm happy to answer questions, including I have a quick thought for Representative Triano about some of the homeowner questions he was asking, but I'll wait until other people may have questions for me. Just a quick question before we do get to Representative Triano. When you reread the roadmap document, it was issued in 2015 or 2016. Did it feel dated to you? Is it information that, I mean, numerically, of course we can change those or we can look at those differently, but in terms of what it was meant to be, does it still play for you? Absolutely, in fact, comically so. And that is both what's frustrating and maybe exciting that we know the answers. It's frustrating because I think we have been talking about this and we have known what the solution has been for a very long time. That document, absolutely, you're right. Some of the numbers maybe need to be tweaked a little, but the end result was the recommendations were calling for investments in affordable housing, supporting housing first models and social services, looking to expand the rental assistance program. I mean, Chris, you did a wonderful job, but it's like what you were saying was exactly what the roadmap said from 2015. We've known this for a long time. And so that's exciting that we are all so on the same page with the answers and it's a little frustrating that we've known it for this long and we still haven't been able to achieve some of these goals. Representative Triano. So I have a few questions, Maura. For my years on human services, I know that housing first is the preferable model at least is what I recall. And it is because the services provided along with the rent assistance and payments tend to keep people in their home and the housing a lot longer. I noted in particular, when you talked about the services coming and going and the need to coordinate those services in a way that the issue that you had mentioned in particular that one side against another, if they know I didn't pay my rent. So are you suggesting that one community action, let's say a service or a community service would collect rents and provide the services so that that opposition doesn't exist? Is that what you have in mind in that case? I'm thinking that, I like analogies too much, but there's a reason y'all only invite me to be a witness when you wanna talk about affordable housing because it's really all I know. I'm a one-trick pony. I don't have a lot more to offer than that. And so in my mind, housing providers, owners and managers of housing do that really well and they need to be allowed to do that well. They have been forced into a situation that the needs of their tenants are so great and the services available to these folks are so limited that houses have now had to become social service providers in addition to houses. And they have done a great job at doing that and they've stepped up to the plate in that way. But when I go back to my academic models, I would prefer to see we leave the trauma-informed services and the deep knowledge of evidence-based best practices to the service providers who know it well, do it well and that's their one-trick and that they have the funding to support their work fully so that houses can go back to doing maintenance requests and collecting rent and determining eligibility and doing programming and supporting community and developing our downtowns and looking for community opportunities to deepen the connection between residents and all the things that the houses are best at. But it would, but to ask for the shelter providers to now start developing transitional and permanent housing and to have our housing providers get into deep level of social services is just mixing up things and it would be great to be able to have adequate funding for the housing and adequate funding for the services so that everyone could do what they do best. Well, that brings me to the next, one of the other comments that you made concerning downtown areas. So what we're facing here in the Northeast Kingdom or Calerney County, Memorial County and Orleans County are homeless situations without shelters entirely and relying almost entirely on motel vouchers presently. And we have a motel that I've learned in Lyndonville that requires families to move every four days into a different room in the same hotel. So these things are happening around the state and they're somewhat disturbing to me with respect to, yes, it's great that we have the greatest number of homeless individuals in Chittenden County and Addison County and wherever else in Wyndham County or else they may be, but we're seeing a lack of services entirely in a lot of counties in rural areas and that's disturbing to me since that's my district. So, you know, it's great to see housing first working in Burlington, it moves me greatly but to hear families living in their cars in Caledonia County moves me in the other direction. And I'm not sure where we go with that. I'm absolutely with you and that is where my fear, which I just, I'm gonna own the fact that in the last six weeks, my fear has been going off the charts based on what the media has been inundating me with and all this. So if I react with fear, I'm sorry, it's sort of my go-to place these days, but my fear when I talk about like, you know, just taking these incremental, well, it's better than that. You know, what you just laid out, Representative, sounds terrible and I didn't know that people were being asked to move rooms every four days. And I'm fearful that then the solution becomes, let's build a shelter because if they were in a shelter, then they could stay for at least a couple months and not have to move every four days. And that would be better than what you're talking about. I wanna just say that it would be because every four days is untenable. But moving into a shelter is also, especially if you're talking about children and the potential opportunities for trauma there, that's not what we should be looking to. And so I'm happy to hear you talk about, you know, a desire to get housing first services up there and things like that because I'm one of the only people who'll go on the record to say, I don't mind the hotel motel system. I really don't. I think it's a part of our long-term solution, but it sure as heck doesn't look like the hotel motel system we've had for the past 10 years. It's a system where we do not have an institutional shelter that needs to be supported with funding and staffing and all that, but instead we go more to having people when they become homeless episodically, they may stay in a hotel or motel for just a weekend. I mean, they became homeless on a Thursday. Let's get them to Monday maybe because we have to, but then by Monday, darn it, we have an apartment identified with the local housing provider and we're able to move them in. But to have a vacancy level to allow for that is going to be expensive and it's going to take a real commitment by the state to get to that point because we are not even close to that reality right now. I'm still in my idealized place that I'm envisioning, but I don't see why we are taking our eyes off the prize right now from that ideal because we need to, if we have to lose this many Vermonters lives and to torpedo our economy the way that this virus has forced us to, we had better have something good to show for it. And I think we can look back on what happened after Irene where we lost Vermonters lives. We had so much property destroyed. We lost real estate to Vermont that we will never get back. It's at the bottom of rivers right now, but at least there's a few things that we can point to to say that we are proud of our response that when pushed to the brink like that we were Vermont strong and we built a stronger Vermont with more flood resiliency and planning and things like that as a result of what we learned from Irene. But staying that ideal place. It reminds me more of one of the first times I heard Rita Markley from Cots who was so passionate about the work that Cots did in this homeless category being able to provide shelters and we know the successes she's had over the years. And then she finished your testimony by saying that I want you to put me out of business which is what it sounds like with that the hotels and motel system is here but we'd rather have homes than that. Thank you. Are you gonna stay on the line or do you have one more comment? I just wanna say to Representative Toriano that there are people talking about the challenges faced by homeowners. And so while there has been talk and some qualification about the money needed to support renters who can't afford their housing the same is true of homeowners with mortgages. They may be able to delay their payments but there's no talk about any kind of help helping them catch up from those potential balloon payments that may be happening. VHFA has created a pandemic indicators page on our housing data website. So housingdata.org. If you go there you'll see at the very top of that page that under our community profiles we have data about indicators to show what communities at a town level may be more at risk of housing instability and things like this. But there are absolutely conversations about property tax relief for municipalities that the state treasure, the Vermont bond bank and the bankers association are having. I forget what committee they were testifying in but those conversations are happening. I promise that the pressure on the municipalities is an active topic that people are talking about. But again, one trick pony, I only know about housing so I can't give you a lot more details than that but it is happening. And I would be happy to connect you with either the bond bank or the folks at the league of stays in town so I know we're working on this. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. All right, I'm gonna pass the microphone to Gus Selig and Gus reached out VHCB as an institution reached out a couple of weeks ago on the same issue. And on our website, there's a document from VHCB that outlines what Gus is gonna talk about today. So I'm gonna Gus, you are unmuted. Welcome. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and committee members and members of both committees that are participating today. While this is a difficult conversation for me it's very heartwarming one. I began my public service career at the organization that's now known as Capstone Community Action in 1977. And I see representative McFawn who was working, worked there at one time back when I joined Capstone and up into the early 1980s we did not have a shelter in central Vermont we didn't have a shelter system in the state of Vermont because we had a much more balanced housing market. So all of the best practices and all of the imagination that more has just expressed is something that is at least within my memory as an old guy. And I see a few other people my age in this discussion today that can remember when Vermont did not need a shelter system. And clearly we need to get back to that. So a few things just as we set up this conversation the Housing and Conservation Board as all of you know has been at work for 30 years and has invested through nonprofits in a little over 13,000 homes and apartments. And I didn't get a chance to meet with you I think Jen Holler was in the committee a lot this year and just a shout out that she really led the process that developed the roadmap to end homelessness back in 2015. Our recent success with you has been around the housing revenue bond and when that work is completed we've already we've funded 843 homes and more than 400 households have moved into those homes so far. There's a lot more that's now stuck with the waiting for construction to really get geared back up again. And as more indicated the nonprofits have really risen to a challenge that through an executive order and moved from about 12% of their portfolios for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness up to over 17%. In past years your organization and again to double down on one of Mora's points has heard testimony from the Children's Health Watch and others about how housing really avoids other costs that we all pay for and saves us money in the long term. And certainly to put anything at the top of our list of what to do it's to get children out of shelters because of the trauma that we know that they will live with and the impact it's gonna have on their ability to participate in school and learn and do all kinds of things. But I think our fundamental humanity as Vermonters says we need to do much more than that. I also just wanna note as we begin this that COVID has revealed to all of us what it really means to be an essential worker and the nonprofits that we work with actually provide housing for so many of those essential workers meaning the people who are stocking our grocery stores the folks who provide cleaning in all kinds of facilities, people working with vulnerable populations in healthcare settings and many others. And so I thanks to all of you for the work on the addiction bill and on the minimum wage legislation. The network that I work with every day is now actively involved in addressing COVID and there has been outreach to residents on social distancing and other ways to stay safe. They've been involved in meals deliveries and they've been helping people navigate the UI system so that they can pay their rent. But as Chris noted, first month there is significant rent loss. And I would say to all of you as you take in the numbers that he put in front of you their large numbers and to do all the things more just suggested we ought to do which I agree with it's probably a low estimate, not a high estimate but one that I agree with her will pay off for all of us if we can find the way to do it and certainly will make us a much more humane state if we can end the shelter system as we've known it. I think there's no going back to the pre-COVID shelter system. I hope that there's agreement about that. It's gonna take, and this speaks to the document that is posted, I think some focused planning and implementation, I can tell you that we are funding partners at the HFA and the state housing authority and the local housing authorities and the nonprofits are all ready to go to work on that. It will also take some assurance that there's agreement among policymakers that this is a good thing to do with some of the COVID relief fund that's been made available and probably in a more timely manner than waiting for budgets to be approved. So let me say just a couple of things that I think COVID made evident how fragile the emergency housing system in Vermont is and the underlying need for affordable housing. And I do wanna just say as Chris did how much we appreciate the leadership and the partnerships that the folks at the OEO office and through the agency of human services have pulled together and secured in a matter of weeks homes for 1,700 people or households. But I think that what we need to do is to really step back now and restructure that system that it was inadequate and underfunded. And AHS I think right now is really focused on the immediate response of the pandemic keeping people safe and alive. And it's gonna take a lot of work to redesign that system for the future both for the residents that are now being housed and for the owners, managers, service providers all of whom have been strained by the fallout from the pandemic both economic and how people are just managing everyday life. So the proposal we've given you asks that you suggest along with your colleagues in the other body that we can be in a task force. And that task force would involve the various agencies, OEO, the Department of Housing and Community Development Mora, Mora's organization, MINE, the Housing Authority along with other stakeholders such as Chris's organization Elizabeth's the homeless service community to come back to really move through all of the resources that it's gonna take. And I salute Chris's plan and that put forth by Housing Vermont really sharpen the numbers, work with congressional delegation on what is gonna need to be in the next recovery package for the state of Vermont and really focus on how do we actually implement as many of the best practices as Mora has put on the table and the intermediate practices that we're gonna need to not reopen shelters next winter as we expect and all the medical experts tell us another round of increased amounts of illness throughout our communities. I think there are other issues to pay attention to that Chris spoke to, we need to enhance eviction prevention. We're gonna need to deal with how do we rehabilitate more housing? How do we stand up these alternatives to shelters? How do we set up a rental registry which would be helpful today if we had one? And how do we do health code enforcement? How do we make sure that tenants who are economically vulnerable don't end up in a bad credit place so that if they lose their housing it becomes near impossible for them to get other housing because their credit's been ruined over the failure to pay rent? I think we have to expand rental assistance statewide. I think the proposals that Chris has made around services are and more social workers is absolutely essential for any housing provider whether nonprofit or for-profit. I think one thing I wanna draw your attention to is whatever happens, whatever we get from the feds there are usually regulatory problems with how we deliver federal money to Vermont. And it has always been the state money that provides the grease that makes federal money work more effectively. One example of that after Tropical Storm Irene is that the FEMA program would only pay people 75% of their pre flood value of their homes. And what my organization did was to provide the other about $2 million so that Vermonters could be paid in full and move on. And we will find that again in the variety of federal programs that are in front of us that we need to have state resources that will make the federal resources work better. I need to say that you will have heard that the CDBG program has been enhanced as have the ESG grants. That's a wonderful thing but it will be wholly inadequate to meet the needs we're talking about in terms of what's been received so far. A lot of our work has also been going to speaking regularly with the congressional delegation about the next round of recovery funding which I think is gonna need to be an economic recovery. And I guess I will just also point out that when we have the kind of economic situation that we are currently in, housing has been one of the great economic multipliers. So getting that system up and working as fast as we can and giving it resources to get more housing built to rehabilitate the worn out stock and so again, many of our communities is gonna be absolutely essential to Vermont's recovery and working with a congressional delegation to get an enhancement of the federal tax credit program, the home and CDBG funding will all be part of the work ahead. Our fundamental suggestion because it's is that we do put together that you ask us to put together a cross agency task force. That was I think in my experience one of the best things about Irene is that all the walls came down between agencies to solve problems as quickly as we could and that we put together, put every federal resource available to work as quickly as we can that we have this task force report to you whether it's every two weeks, every month about what we're finding, what we're recommending. And how do we put the resources together to build a better continuum of housing opportunities to meet the needs and especially focused on the homeless as the place that we really do not wanna go back to. Last thing I just need to mention to you because one of the strategies all of the nonprofits have engaged in has been to enroll in that what you've heard is the PPP program Payroll Protection Program. There is now word coming from the SBA that without a waiver of their rules they think that many of the housing nonprofits profits who have already received loans under that program which are to be forgiven will not be eligible and we'll have to pay that money back rather than having it granted to them. We're running that down with the congressional delegation now. We noted that the gaming industry was usually not eligible for that program and is somehow now eligible. So I'm hopeful that when Congress understands that SBA thinks that these housing nonprofits are not eligible, they'll rethink that issue and waive rules but we do have an exposure and for our largest organizations like Cathedral Square the loan amounts are extraordinarily significant but even for the smaller ones serving places like Lemoile County and the Northeast Kingdom enrollment in that program will be key to their economic future and their ability to serve all of us in addressing these issues. So I'm happy to stop there. I know you've got another witness but I think that it's really gonna take all of us rolling up our sleeves and working together to make real as much of the roadmap to end homelessness as possible and it's gonna take your leadership as the policy makers to have a big influence on what we do with the federal resources coming into Vermont and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Gus. I think finding out how much of this money that is possibly available can be available for housing and that's something we'll work with starting with JFO. I think we just need to find out if they're the ones to talk to to find out. I mean, I know that there's been a lot of housing money listed in the programs that have been the other information that's been put out but how we can use it at this level is new representative Triano and then we have, and then representative Hango and then Byron. So Gus, it's good to hear about speaking of the old days representative McFawn and I have often reminisced the early days of community action in 1974 and five up in the kingdom when I recognize your name from back then as well. So, you know, you talk about the task force to create a task force. Is that saying that there is presently no task force or council that would join thoughts on homelessness or and possibly recommend agency consolidation as far as that goes? There's a variety of different groups that meet for different purposes including a council on homelessness. There is something called the Vermont Housing Council. I think we probably need a more, a group that is really focused on this particular crisis and how to respond to it and how to work with the various federal sources because they all come with different rules and regulations. And so I think we need a special group that's focused right now on this crisis and how do we come out of it with some new solutions? Would you envision that being created by a legislative action? I think we needed something maybe as simple as your committee and the other body's committee on this issue sending us a letter saying, would you please get to work on it? And we will do that. Okay. Thanks, Gus. All right, representative Hango. Hi, thank you. A while back, I think it was February that we heard from Sarah Phillips of OEO about the restructuring of the emergency housing system. And then it was reiterated on April 15th by commissioner Schatz that that was still on the books to do and that the deadline for that had been extended to April of 2021. So how does your proposal of a task force to work on these issues dovetail with that particular restructuring? Well, I'm not an expert on their proposed restructuring and I can tell you I've talked with Sarah in the last week and I think that what we've learned from the pandemic is that if you're in a part of the state where like the upper Connecticut River Valley where they're able to raise at the Haven two and a half or $3 million a year to support their shelter, they were doing pretty well. And if you were in very Vermont, the Good Samaritan Haven has nothing like that. But in either case, we've decided as a state that housing people in as crowded a set of conditions as those shelters were was not safe or healthy for the residents. And so I think that the agency of human services is continuing to think about how they can do that. But I think what I'm saying to you and I imagine you'll hear this from Sarah whenever she gets a chance to talk with you that simply going back to the system as it was will not be safe enough or healthy enough. So I think that they do dovetail and I just don't know enough about their current plan in the midst of this pandemic to offer a lot of wisdom about exactly how it will dovetail. But what I would say is that that report was not focused upon standing up new facilities that provided micro apartments, provided new housing alternatives that... So whatever the plans were, I think we need to enhance what it was gonna be to come up with something different and stronger. And I think for those parts of the state that don't have the kind of philanthropic resources that you see in the upper valley, whether it's Bennington or Rutland or the Northeast Kingdom or the Barrie area, it's gonna take more public support than is probably available to have a better system than we had. Thank you. I think their proposal was to restructure the way these services are funded actually and not the physical buildings that are being used. So I guess my question to you is your task force that's proposed is going to come up with an idea of how to better house folks, but it's up to the administration and the legislature how to fund that housing. So I would think that if they're intending to go ahead with this plan to restructure emergency housing in such a different way, I think that maybe the two groups need to be on the same page with that. Well, absolutely. And the proposal I put in front of you would include the agency of human services as part of the task force. I think what Mara's organization and mine would add to it is a lot of expertise about how we go about building and developing facilities clearly an organization like the state housing authority would be providing are the masters of knowledge when it comes to the federal analysis programs. So what I'm saying to you is we need all parties working together on a plan that comes up with something different than what we have today. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry, I must have missed somewhere in your proposal, the agency of human services, but I do see OEO. So thank you. Yeah, I mean, OEO has been on the lead for it, but you know, and Sarah Phillips has been doing a great job and I'm happy to, Secretary Smith is actually a member of my board, he's represented by somebody on the board, but we, so we're integrated in our thinking with AHS on a regular basis and we will need that in order to be successful. And I think that the conversation too from OEO from Sarah Phillips was about restructuring the general assistance program specifically, which is a much smaller emergency-based system than what we've been handed recently. So thank you, Representative Byron. Yeah, thank you. I had a question about the PPP program you were referring to. What's the barrier you're running into? Is that your organization's designation? Are you a C6 or something? No, they, somebody at SBA in Vermont talked to somebody at headquarters for the SBA and they said, housing organizations receive passive income and organizations that get passive income are not eligible for the program. Now, we would, I think, counter that these organizations receive income for services. This is not like you and your brother-in-law investing in an apartment building and you just wait for the money to come in. There's a huge amount of service and the fundamental around the establishment of the Payroll Protection Program is for people to not shed jobs to protect the employees. So I would argue, and our congressional delegation will argue that SBA is not using all the authority they've been given to on eligibility, but at this moment, it is a top concern. Okay, no, I'm just asking. I've been doing a lot of work with the congressional delegation, the SBA. I'm a business owner myself. I own a cafe, so I'm in a sector that's heavily impacted by this. So I've been working with a lot of other business owners across multiple sectors, trying to navigate the dynamics of the idle and the PPP. So I have a pretty good fluency with the programs. I was just trying to get an understanding of what your particular issue was. So have you seen a disruption in your payroll, not necessarily funding streams, like your capacity to support your existing payroll? So it's not VHCB, but it's the 10 or 12 partners we work with around the state and what they are seeing are greatly increased costs of managing the housing that they're responsible for. Some of that is simply cleaning. Number of them are providing what they're calling hero paid or their frontline employees who are still on the job and doing maintenance and so forth. So that's an increased cost. And then as Chris indicated, there's a decline in income. So there is a disruption, an economic disruption for these organizations. I think part of the problem is that this is the first time that the SBA has been told to make nonprofits eligible for their programs. They're usually not. And so I think they're just, it's a square peg in a round hole for the SBA. Scure is C3. What? Are you set up as- Most of these organizations are C3s. Okay, because I knew there was a- My organization- C6s, which is a totally obscure designation, but you don't fall under that. No. Okay. I was just trying to wrap my head around it. If I'm having conversations, I might as well try and throw your scenario on my bullet points when I'm communicating these problems. I'd be happy to talk with you more offline. There's an awful lot of nuance on this issue that we're working through with the attorneys. Okay. Honestly, I'd love to talk to you more about it. Shoot me an email. We'll set up a time to talk. Great. Thank you. All right. Representative Redmond. Thanks, Gus. Really appreciate your work. A couple of things. This is real outside the box thinking, but I'm curious if you talked about the state funding and the federal funding really needing each other to kind of grease the wheels and really pull down that federal funding. I'm wondering if there's a role here for philanthropy as well. If there are any opportunities here to leverage national funds philanthropically in pay for success or other, maybe even local philanthropy through some kind of a fund that would revolve around the work of this task force. I feel like there are people in our local state and communities who really haven't been impacted that badly by COVID and stand at the ready but just aren't sure how to have like a more significant impact. So I'm wondering if that can be a piece of this too. At any rate, I'm throwing that out. And then one other thing I just wanna say, and that is if I know you're working with the congressional delegation, but if there's a way we can be helpful in advocacy on the PPP, to me that it's utterly outrageous. My alma mater, which has an $11 billion endowment pulled down money off of PPP, which to me is just outrageous. So let us know if there's any help we can be on that front. We'll absolutely let you know, as you know, we have a very supportive congressional delegation. I'm sure they're gonna do everything they can on that. I think that there's a role for philanthropy. Mora can tell you that she already has an investment from the Vermont Community Foundation. We've been in touch with them over the last week about them providing some funding. In the past, we had a large grant from the MacArthur Foundation back in the day that they were funding affordable housing and a large program related investment again through our partners at VHFA. They're now out of the housing as an issue. I have a call lined up with the Wells Fargo Foundation in a couple of weeks to talk with them. But when you look at the size of the dollars that CHT and Housing Vermont have recommended, housing philanthropy is gonna help us around the edges. It's not gonna replace public policy and public investment. So it can be helpful. As I said, if you talk to the folks at the Haven or read a Mark Lee at COTS between the two of them, I'm sure they raise close to $5 million a year already in the state of Vermont to support homeless folks and how much more there is to get from philanthropy. I just don't know. It's a piece of everybody's work that we work with but it will not to ramp up to the degree we're talking about, it won't do it by itself but certainly can be part of the puzzle. Yeah, not suggesting that it would replace the other just that I guess I wanna push back a little bit about against that. I think that we in Vermont tend to think of philanthropy in it with its limited capacity. And I think that for a project that seeks to end homelessness in our like, I think there are other possibilities beyond Vermont that are there and some of us here have access to and I just think we need to think bigger that could be a way to access to leverage funds that we have here. And pay for success is another possibility out there that we really haven't utilized much in Vermont. So at any rate, I hear you and I feel like there's tremendous possibility beyond what we've done before. So at any rate. Well, that's a good way to think so. Yeah, let's exchange ideas about where else we can be hunting for philanthropic dollars. All right, thank you Gus and thank you everybody for questions. I wanna pass the microphone now to Elizabeth Bridgewater and Elizabeth, if you could just start off by introducing yourself and your organization. We did talk briefly last week with our Senate counterparts and two of the senators are from, one is from Wyndham, one is from Windsor County and I was struck by, I mean, their busyness has not led them down this path quite as far as we are but they're definitely interested in finding out what's going on in their counties and I think we wanted to have a geographic understanding. Again, I know more about central Vermont, of course, there's plenty of people who know about the Northwest corner in the Northeast kingdom but we haven't heard much about from the Southern half of the state. I'm just wondering if you can fill us in on what you're seeing and how it works with what we've been talking about today and you had mentioned that you wanted to fill in a little bit on the conversation that we had earlier. So if you could just, the microphone is yours, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm Elizabeth Bridgewater and I'm the executive director of the Wyndham and Windsor Housing Trust and I've prepared some statements and then I'll answer questions and share a lot of detail if you'd like to hear it. And if you can share that statement, if it's electronic, if you can send it along and we can just post that later. Thank you. So the Wyndham and Windsor Housing Trust is the 32 year old nonprofit. We provide homes to over 1500 adults and children and 818 apartments that are scattered throughout the two counties. We also have 40 mobile home lots. We have a long history of providing permanent homes to those who've experienced homelessness. Currently 178% of our households that are living in one of our apartments was either homeless when they moved in or they were precariously housed before they moved in. Many of these residents are receiving ongoing support from one of our 10 community partners with whom we have a memorandum of understanding to provide case management and housing retention services. Today 236 households in our portfolio are supported in this manner and that includes 110 individuals supported by two SASH panels in two different locations within our housing sites. So we have quite a lot of experience working with community partners to provide housing and ability to folks that are formerly homeless. In addition, two years ago we developed our region's first permanent supportive housing community that we call Great River Terrace. And Great River Terrace was a former motel called the Lamp Lighter. And we redeveloped that property and it's now home to 22 households. And most of them were in our folks that have experienced the most chronic and persistent homelessness in our community. They've suffered from substance use disorder, have ongoing mental health and physical health challenges, a lot of childhood trauma that is still affecting their lives today. Supportive services are provided on site by two community partners, GroundWorks Collaborative, helps residents navigate the challenges of everyday living, learning new behavior patterns that include being able to plan long-term and navigate some of the systems that are available to them and some of the resources that are available to them. Healthcare and rehabilitation services provides the more clinical support for more complex mental health challenges. And like Maura said, we own the housing and we have a staff member that does some service coordination, but that one-on-one support is provided by two separate agencies. And so we're following those best practices and I agree wholeheartedly with Maura that this is the right way to structure these different resources. I wanna share that our experience in partnering with community organizations to provide this level of support in both the scattered site model that I described earlier and also the concentrated setting like Great River Terrace has taught us how critical these services are to help people who experience homelessness gain stability and rebuild their lives. We have consistently found that with supportive services, people are more likely to maintain their housing, more likely to weather the challenges that come their way. And of course, the SASH model has taught us that targeted support around health produces better health incomes like controlled hypertension, increased participation in vaccines for the flu virus, the more common flu virus and pneumonia. And these positive outcomes are why we believe any proposal aimed at protecting the most vulnerable Vermonters during this health crisis absolutely needs to include supportive services. I'm just getting a note that my battery's about to die so hold on and plug in my computer. So you know that over 1,700 Vermonters are currently living in motels or hotels in order to give them the opportunity to stay safe and stay home. In Browleboro, that number is 117. In Springfield District, that number is 79. And in some ways it's kind of remarkable. I was talking to Josh Davis at Groundworks Collaborative this morning, he wrote a beautiful op-ed piece that states that in the last 30 days, 30 days we've effectively ended the homelessness crisis in Vermont. We actually don't know of one single person in Browleboro that's sleeping outside right now, which is pretty remarkable because normally this time of year, Groundworks Collaborative is giving out tents to people as they leave the overflow shelter. And that of course is not what's happening right now. But this current solution is not sustainable. And as Josh goes on to say that COVID-19 has really shown us how taking care of each other is our best way to take care of all of us. And that in our entire community's vulnerability is directly connected to the vulnerability of every single one of its parts. So we need a plan. The challenge is that as others have noted, there is a persistent low vacancy right throughout the state. And so we absolutely need a significant and long-term investment in new housing construction and an illusion of funding for short-term solutions right now. We just don't have the inventory to absorb 117, 1,700 people that are likely needing to move out of the shelters and the motels that they're living in later this spring. To put some more specifics on it, the Wyndham and Windsor Housing Trust right now has five vacancies. So that's less than 5% of who's living in a motel right now in Brattleboro. In Burlington, talking to my colleagues at Champlain Housing Trust, they report that they've only got 10 apartments available that they can absorb for homeless folks to live in, which represents less than 1% of the 400 people living in motels up in that region right now. So we have a real problem with inventory. The good news is while these numbers are daunting, Vermont is in the fortunate position of having a very solid network of strong and experienced housing development organizations that can mobilize their expertise and capacity to tackle this issue. We demonstrated that recently with the rapid deployment of the housing revenue bond funds producing hundreds of new homes in a relatively short period of time. I know our organization was able to take advantage of the revenue bond money to produce 68 new apartments in less than two years. We've got another 26 that have just received an allocation of low-income housing tax credits to produce 26 more apartments in Bellas Falls, which is the area of critical need. So I know that we have a lot of confidence in this system and ability to be a part of the solution. I also know that every single executive director that's in an organization like mine is strategizing right now with their community partners like Groundwork's Collaborative. We're looking at different sites. We're looking at different properties that we can acquire. We're talking about ideas out of the box and trying to make sure that every single Vermont has a home where they can seek refuge in order to not succumb to this deadly virus. In the short run, we need the resources to maintain the current position that is currently keeping people safe and sheltered while we develop long-term solutions. This means continued funding for organizations that are providing that supportive services. I know Groundwork's Collaborative is providing three meals a day. They're on the property. They're virtually running the motel side-by-side with the motel staff down here in Brattleboro. And actually it's working really well. We also need rental assistance to actually pay for the motel rooms and to sustain this current situation so that as new existing apartments come online and new apartments are built, we have the resources to transition people into permanent homes. And of course, it's critical that organizations like ours and Champlain Housing Trust and other housing developers have the capital we need to tackle the inventory issue and bring more units online. This is the three-legged stool that Chris talked about. It's a metaphor that we use all the time and it can't be any more compelling than it is today. There's a lot of money coming into the state. It's kind of mind-boggling the amount of money that's in the CARES Act. And I recognize that there are hundreds and hundreds of details that need to be worked out on how to spend this money. And I don't envy those of you that have to do that. That's a big job. I do thank you though. I thank you for everything you're doing to help us emerge from this crisis as a stronger community and a permanent home for everyone is a key component to ensuring that this happens. COVID-19 has made it impossible to deny the importance of housing and home as the very foundation of health and safety and may we transform this heightened awareness into action and use this moment to strengthen our housing delivery system by building more homes, ensuring and expanding supportive services and increasing rental assistance. Thank you for that. And I'm happy to answer any questions about what's going on locally in my organization and in my communities that we serve. Well, you spoke earlier or you sent to note earlier just in general about adding on the ground experience to the conversation that was going on a few minutes ago. Did you want to elaborate on that further? Yeah, so Mora was talking about the best practices around separating services. And I just wanted to share one story that has come up to illustrate why this is really. You were, you're pausing Elizabeth. Did we lose her? All right, I'm gonna, Elizabeth, I don't know if you can hear me, but if you turn off your video underneath the three dots you might get reconnected and she's cut off, right? All right, I'm gonna, while we're waiting for her to come back on. I wanted to go back to Chris Donnelly for a minute, Chris, are you there? And I just wanted you, can you go over and Topper, I saw that your hand was up. And was that a question for, was that a question for Elizabeth? Okay, so when we get her back we'll make sure we get you on. Chris, if you could just give us a quick a reminder about Harbor Place because Harbor Place has come up the concept of the, of what more shared with us about housing with shared services is exactly what Harbor Place has been. I know it's not been used this way during the crisis but if you could just explain why is it so much less expensive to do what you did there than it is to simply provide the hotel rooms with the volunteer services in terms of what we've been trying, what we've been able to cobble together in response to the pandemic right now. But if you could just give us a again a quick review of what Harbor Place does and how much it costs for, to provide those services. So Harbor Place is a motel that used to be Econolodge in Shelburne. And it is, it has been used since for the last six years to divert people out of the GA motel program when the shelters have been full. The state has a contract with us for 30 rooms per night. There are 55 rooms total. And then we have relationship with the UVM Medical Center to rent rooms to their patients as well. The difference between what we do at Harbor Place and what the other motel, GA motel program, general assistance program does is that we allow for service agencies to come onsite to provide case management and support the services and connect people to the resources that they need to get back on their feet. It is cheaper for a couple of reasons. Primarily, we're not pulling a profit out as a regular motel would need to do. We're not needing to engage in all the advertising and so forth. So we're managing the property at a little bit less than breakeven proposition. And then the social services are being provided by the other nonprofits in the region. It has been in the last two months. It has turned into a place where the state asked us to support them and we have turned Harbor Place into a place where people that are COVID symptomatic but maybe not positive can stay to isolate them from others especially before we had a lot more testing. And so it has been used in that way for the last month and a half. This is a success story. It may not sound like that but very few people have stayed there. The success has been that we have quickly as a state move people into other motels and gotten people out of shelters to avoid the spread of the virus in the shelters and in tenting cabinets. I saw a story in the New York Times the other week that 43 people died in one day in the shelter systems in New York City. So this is what we were trying to avoid by moving people out of those kind of congregate settings. So it's been underutilized but that's a good thing. I'd like to thank Chris and Gus and Mora for showing up today. This is obviously a really broad conversation and I think committee for our purposes we're not meeting again until Friday and we will be hearing from administration officials. I've asked them to provide more updated information with respect to the programs that have taken folks off the street. I think I'm, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the number has inched upwards to 1,700 Vermonters who were homeless. But I think the question in front of us that we should just think about right now is asking, is the question that Gus asked us about putting together a letter asking them to form a task force but we can have that conversation on Friday, I think or we can share thoughts before then. I would want it to let you know that there is, if you haven't seen it in the paper or in the paper on Digger or on VPR or in seven days that there is a bill in the Senate that may be voted out of committee as soon as today that considers hazard pay or it's not hazard pay technically I guess and that's gonna be a huge issue but it's the bill that will be coming out of appropriations that would provide some working bonuses for people who are, for people who are working as essential workers who make us under a certain amount of money per year. I think the number that the Senate settled in on was $25 an hour where there would be benefits for the, where there would be benefits for those folks who are working kind of to do two things. One of which is to say as a state, thank you for continuing to work and to acknowledge that they're not unemployed and receiving the extra $600 that is being paid to people who have finally gotten through on unemployment. But anyway, that's just something that's gonna be coming and I feel should be hearing if it comes over to the house I'm not sure if it's going to come to us in any way shape or form or if it's gonna go straight to appropriations but it is gonna be something that's moving forward. I see Elizabeth has joined us again. Are you, Elizabeth, can you hear? And now sorry about that. I think our internet at our house completely went down because everything shut off all at once. You froze, yeah. So committee, before we go, Representative McFawn had a question for you, Elizabeth and so please go ahead, Tupper. Thank you. Um, Elizabeth, I'm intrigued by the amount of housing stock that you have. And I was just wondering, where did you get the money to develop such a housing stock? Well, it's come from a variety of sources over the last 32 years. About 70% of most of different housing developments is provided by the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program, which is actually private equity that is invested by local banks and other regional banks. That's the organization, that's the money that Mora Collins Organization administers through the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. And the other 30% is from state and other federal sources, most of which are administered with Gus's organization. And then there's some smaller sources of capital that we can bring to the table with each development through some other partners that we have on the national level. Thank you. I wanna go back to Representative Redmond. To me, if you could get into the philanthropic area as well, I think that that's a little bit of out of the box. It's not a state agency, a federal agency, but I think there are people and organizations that might be able to add to that. And so I'm looking at Representative Redmond's remarks in a very positive way to supplement what we're talking about that we may be able to get through the governmental process. I think that there is a role for philanthropic money. And we, like many organizations like ours, have done a really nice job working with local donors and some national funders as well. But the cost of housing and the need for housing is so enormous that I agree with Gus. I don't think private donations are the answer to this problem. If you look at some of our recent housing proposals up in the $6 million range, we built a new property down in downtown Brattleboro that came online this winter. And I'm not gonna remember the exact price tag of it, but it's upwards of $6 million for 23 apartments and a couple of commercial spaces. I just don't know of any philanthropic source that's gonna fill that kind of infrastructure gap that we have in Vermont. And there is a system that is in place that works really well. And I think we need to put more resources to that existing system and utilize our philanthropic money for some of the other needs that our organizations have that are not the housing development side of the business. Okay, thank you. And Topper, I'm surprised that you haven't felt our pain coming through the walls between our two committee rooms over the use of the underfunding via the property transfer tax and our consistent battles with the people in the next room over how that money should be used. And because those, again, it was put into place for exactly what you're talking about in order to grow housing. But that's for another day, but it does encompass the housing communities. I think this was discussed by each of the folks that the ideas are there, almost the answers are there and it requires the capital that... Money. Well, yes, and capacity. I'm gonna go to Mora Collins. Go ahead, Mora. I just wanted to follow up on that. Gus alluded to it, that VHFA has had a long staying relationship with the Vermont Community Foundation. I believe it goes back to 2005 when they started investing in us and the Community Foundation has grant money that they regularly deploy for various charitable efforts and then they also have investments that they make. And the relationship that we've had with them is an investment where we borrow money from the Community Foundation and guarantee them a rate of return. And because it's a foundation, it's affordable money for us and it's a low return that we have to pay them. And so it's capital for us. And then with that, we just expanded that partnership though and we'll be rolling this out in the coming months. And now I believe that we are one of their largest investments that they have with a single organization and we're up to one and a half million dollars. And we are taking that money from them and then using VHFAs money and adding to it so that we can offer unusually low rates to borrowers and we're going to be relaunching a pre-development program that is some of the riskiest and hardest to come by money when developers like Wyndham Windsor Housing Trust or the Champlain Housing Trust or others are looking to do a new development. They need some upfront money and not a lot of people wanna loan them money for that. So the Community Foundation is gonna help us by supporting that as well as long-term 30-year money to make the housing more affordable and lower rents for the participants. But in addition, I wanna also shout out, it may not be philanthropy by a foundation but also the private donations that the nonprofits have been asking for has really been growing the last several years. And I think Elizabeth was being modest in not talking about, I believe that Wyndham Windsor was able to raise, they were aiming for I think $400,000 but raised $500,000 to create a flexible pool of money from private donations in their community that shows the community support for her organization and that kind of creativity of looking to foundations when possible but also just looking to a community to support. I know that Shires and Bennington has had great support from their municipalities going to town meetings each year and looking for individual donations from municipalities to support the SASH program that they have. And I think other nonprofits have followed that lead. There's a lot of ways that the state's nonprofits have looked yes to foundations but also to many ways of private donations and fundraising to help fill these gaps that inevitably happen from the funding sources that we have. Yeah, I can add a little bit more nuance to that. We, actually we aimed at $300,000 was our first goal and we quickly surpassed that. The fund ended up raising $526,000 in about a year and a half from very generous local supporters in the Brattleboro area and a few foundations who provided matching grants and what we're doing with those funds are a little bit of what Mora described in that there's a gap between the point and time when you have all of your funding committed or the majority of your funding committed for a housing development project and you need to spend a lot of money to get to the next milestone in the process which is when you can actually close on all of that funding that you received and start construction and that gap can you can spend between a hundred and $500,000 in that gap period and it's hard to have a line of credit that can cover those cash needs. So that's what we're using this philanthropic money for and it's quite brilliant because we don't spend any of it until we have the majority of our funding in place. So for example, we're about to start on a project hopefully starting construction this fall on a project in Bella's Falls of 26 new apartments along the Connecticut River. And we haven't touched any of that fund yet but we recently got about 90% of our funding in place to get started so we feel like we can start spending some of that money. And when we close on that project money in the fall and start construction, we'll pay ourselves back and that fund will be ready for the next project going forward. So we were able to tell our donors that their money is basically leveraging every single housing project that we have from this point forward. They helped bring our Snow Block project online. We spent about 400,000 in that fund during that gap period. We paid it all back and it's been sitting there ready and waiting and we're about to spend it on the Bella's Falls project. So it's been a great replenishing source of capital to use during that gap period. So thank you more for reminding me of that story. It's a good one to share in this context. I'm sorry, yeah, I was muted. Thank you. Elizabeth, thank you. Could you send us an electronic copy also of the comments that you made mentioned of Josh Davis's just about his thoughts on getting folks off the street. I would appreciate that to post online. Everybody, I would like to thank you. I'd like to thank us and Chris and Maura and Elizabeth for joining us. I'd like to thank Kelly and Teresa and Topper and Mary Beth for joining us as well. We will pick up this conversation with more witnesses on Friday. We'll have that agenda out to you, the witness list out to you. I'm certainly in the next couple of days. We'll see you all tomorrow. I believe we'll be seeing all of us in the next couple of days online, but thank you very much for participating today. We'll see you soon. Thank you. Thank you. Bye everyone. Bye, thank you again. Bye.