 We are going to dive right in right now to H 492. Luke, if you could join us. I called us a markup session and what I really wanted to be able to do was, I did ask, the first thing I wanna do with this bill today is I had asked Luke Marlin to come in with a new definition of what homelessness is, or not new, but just an alternative. Right now, we have, in 492, the definition of homelessness is tied into the federal definition of homelessness, which is pretty lengthy, but also we were advised, I believe, by the Human Rights Commission, perhaps that referring to federal statute for this may not be the best idea just because federal definitions can change without our approval. And so I asked Luke to come in with different language that we can consider, but also to go through the sections of the bill again, just very quickly to say, and to ask the committee, did we have questions about any sections of the bill that we can address while we have Luke's time? So. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, Luke Marlin, the director of Lesh Council and Chief Counsel General Assembly. I'm here in age 492, and it's good to see you all again. The chair had asked me to reference any definition of homelessness in state law. And if you remember, when I did the walkthrough, I think it was a couple weeks ago, at this point, maybe two or even three weeks ago, I read for you the federal definition, which indeed is long. And then I read to you some language from title 16, which is education. And let me read that to you again, because it's not really a definition of homelessness, but it is indirectly. And let me remind you about language, because that is language you could use if you wish to. So this is existing state law. And once again, you don't have to follow existing state law, but it's often a good jumping off point. So you could modify this definition, if you will. It was in title 16, a 16, VSA 10, 0, 7, 5. And this is in the context of school kids and where they go to school. And there's language about child of homeless parents. And let me read that to you again. A child of homeless parents means a child whose parents, one, lack a fixed, regular, and adequate residence, or two, have a primary nighttime residence in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter for temporary accommodations, such as public assistance hotels, emergency shelters, battered women's shelters, and transitional housing facilities, or a public or private place not designated for, or ordinarily used for, a regular sleep and accommodation for human beings. So this was a language that we looked at a couple weeks ago. It's in title 16. So you can see that it could be very easily changed to a definition of homelessness or homeless status. And it does actually track some of the same language in the federal statute. For example, a place that's not ordinarily used for human beings to sleep at night tracks some of the federal law. The shelter language tracks some of the federal law. So it's different then, but somewhat similar to the federal definition. So if you want to use this as a jumping off point, I think it would be very easy to do so, to simply take that language and make it a definition of housing status. Yes. So the last definition of a place that is not normally used for human application or whatever that is. Regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. Right, okay. So with that, in your opinion, would that be like a barn or some kind of an outbuilding shed on the deed? Absolutely. That would be a car. You're sleeping in a place that isn't normally understood to be a place that people would sleep in. Over and out, yes. So this definition is assigning this definition to the child's parents. Correct. And so it gets us part of the way there in terms of what homelessness can be defined as. I would think it gets you, if you like this definition, once again, you could have your own definition, you could modify it, that's up to you guys. But I think it gets you a 99% of the way there if you like it. For example, using exactly the same words, but fitting it into the terms that are used in your bill. Housing status, this would be how it would be used in your bill if you wish to do that. Housing status, which is a key term, if you remember, in Title IX and the other statutes you're modifying. Housing status means the status of lacking a fixed regular inadequate residence or having a primary nighttime residence in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter. So this is taking the same language, such as public assistance hotels, emergency shelters, battered women's shelters, and transitional housing facilities, or a public or private place not designated for or ordinarily used as regular sleeping accommodations for human beings. So that's taking the same language from Title XVI, putting it in the manner that you would have it in this bill. The federal definition had elements of perception. Is that right? Let me pull that up for you. Let me look. So the federal definition is referring to the federal law. Would be, for example, an individual or family who lacks a fixed regular inadequate nighttime residence, similar to what I just read you, an individual or family with a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designated for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, very similar to what I just read you, but they give examples, including a car, park, abandoned building. An individual or family living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter, once again similar to what I just read to you, an individual who resides in a place, I'm sorry, in a shelter place not meant for human habitation and who's exiting an institution where he or she was temporarily resided. So it's phrased a little awkwardly, but that's a little different than what I just read to you. Is that someone coming out of jail? Yeah, I would think so, jail, psychiatric facility, some other kind of involuntary status, yes. So a lot of it tracks, in some way, the state language that I just summarized for you. It's longer and includes some other things also. Is it possible to get a copy of that wording on our iPads? Of which we're in the federal or state or? State, well, actually both. Sure, so we'll stay, you can look up. I prefer to read something rather than hear it. So federal, I can email to you, state, you can look up right now, you can use the citation on the website. It's 16VSA1075, so if you go to the website under Vermont statutes, you can look it up. Putting it all together, I didn't know if the committee wanted to do that. If they do, I can plop that language into the bill and you can look at it and decide how to modify it. So absolutely, we can get it to you in the different ways. If you tell it to me, I can go ahead and push it to you. You're talking about the Vermont statute? Vermont statute. Vermont statute, just wanted you to pull it out from the website, the 16VSA1075 under Vermont laws. I'm getting statute search. Then you're gonna go to Vermont laws, pull down, yep. And then go down, federal 16, and then pull that up. Under the education. Education, then all the way down to the 10VSA1075. You went a little too far, 10VSA1075, 10VSA1075, 7,000, we've done, we've probably got starts on 10. 10VSA1075, just on that. And that's it. Then you go all the way, he has an echo. I think we'll see you on the screen now. We'll show you. I will post this right now. Thank you. Okay. So we'll have that posted to look at. Represent the Collective. In the Vermont language, I'm just wondering that, as I was listening, when I visited a treatment court in both Berry and Burlington, it was a lot of kids that were in the system were couch surfing, and they really weren't, and some of them were not concerned, homeless, but they were homeless because they, and they were having real troubles with saying to the judge, you know, look it's, when I walk out on the church street today, after I leave you, promise me to be good. I have to find a place to stay tonight, and I couch surf, and sometimes I make bad mistakes. Will that fit in the, our Vermont addition? I think it's arguable that definitely would. Lack that fits regular residents. That would seem to fit. Now, some of this, what you're talking about, is how a court would interpret it, how an A.C. department would do the rulemaking to apply it. So, I can't comment on that, but it would seem that they were in the language. I think that's good, because when we get our count, it's a thousand people who are living not in any kind of shelter. And so we, you know, to get all the counts, I get such a bigger universe. So, if we're gonna have a bill of rights, these kids, or these people, it's not just kids. Great. I think that's a good argument with Tim, but then, yeah, I agree. And I guess there's another general concept here. We were talking about, last week, in the conversation, the difference between someone who's homeless and someone who's perceived to be homeless. Yes. How was that covered? Well, I had received an email from one of the witnesses, and I think you were on that email, I don't know if the rest of the community was, so I was CC 9 and couldn't not respond to it. I think that witness was suggesting that perceived be added. That's what the second committee to make. Yeah, I mean, so we had a conversation, there was a lot of difference between, again, that discrimination, an act of discrimination would not have become a perception. So as the state potential definition that I've read to you does not include the word perceived. So obviously the difference is, actual means you are in that status. So that would have to be demonstrated. Perceived means that someone thinks you're in that status. So it expands the universe of people who would be covered by the anti-discrimination law, or in the so-called homeless bill rights, it expands that also, so. Okay, represent us out. In the bill is introduced section 274, subsection D is where the word perceived appears. And I had raised a question about that because it was used in that one subsection, but not, it was just consistency, I don't know if it's consistent with the rest, but it is covered in there, it's just covered in one subsection instead of all of it. Well, in that part, so you're absolutely right, you could catch it. But in the amendments to the existing anti-discrimination laws, in Title IX, the word perceived is non-used. Okay. So that's a policy decision that we have to make decision on when we see, you can look at whole definitions side by side, we'll have a conversation about the federal definitions and the ones that you brought forward from education. Yep. And we'll see, we'll have a conversation about which one we would like to pursue. Okay. I think that's the best way to handle that. Yeah, that part of the bill. Lisa. Just a quick note that this came up at a school board meeting the other night that homelessness is gonna be very important to define in terms of education because of residency in various school districts. Sure. And we're in my district, we are facing that, that we don't really know whether a student is a resident and needing to be educated in that district. And that's what I read to you from Title XVI, it's in that context. So I can't say how to apply it. Right, so that's why I'm not holding it. But that's where it's in the context of what school district the kids would attend because it's in the context of a child of homeless parents. And I believe that's where the link here and the connection to the McKinney-Vento Act also plays into the issue of how kids can be educated and how that works. So let's start, so let's just track now the rest of the bill. Sure. And see where we are on particular sections here. How would you like me to do that? Do you want me to just say we're looking at the findings or what? How would you like me to see it? Let's do this, there's three distinct sections of the, yeah, there's three distinct areas in the bill. There's the findings, there's the Bill of Rights, and then there's the addition, there's the protected status towards the end of maybe more there, which I guess we'll go through what I've done. So let's do finding, let's just consider what the findings are, determine whether or not we think it's necessary. Come on in. I was like, where's the lady that heard something? Yeah, I think someone just, come on in. Oh, I don't know. No, that was pretty intentional, yeah. It might be the cigarette person. Oh, I'm sorry. Take a one on the back here. So what do we have? So we have just a short list of findings of this committee. This is open to your conversation. Do you have an opinion on the findings that have been proposed here? And there's one more find in the next page, there's a total of three. I just will tell you how. Any thoughts or comments on this? Is it, as if not, we can move right to the next section. So I guess Article 1, Chapter 1, the Monters are equally free and independent. Does that really speak to or cover what we're doing here? His article is 7, Chapter 1, sufficient. I guess that's when I was reading it, that was what I was thinking. Well, if you could keyword here equally. It could be. I'm just drawing it out. Yeah, that is true. All the Monters are equal in terms of what seems to be free and independent. But I do have a good question. How long is it? Well, because Article 7, Chapter 1, all the Monters are entitled to the same benefits and protections. So isn't that where we're going with this? Again, I'm just putting it out there. I don't have a problem with this thing then. Again, findings are some things that we tend not to do a lot of. They're merely a statement. A statement. I was going to say an amuse-bouche, it's just sort of a presentation of what this bill is dealing with and why this bill came forward. So, yeah, Charles. I think if Oryang said we should consider also the perception of, so if that is true, if we take that later on and include that, then the intent of this act, people without a home to the perception of would probably go there as a binding if we're defining a legislative intent. And we include that. So are you talking about page 2, line number 3? Line 3. Yes. Remember, yeah, we went for it. The Human Rights Commission testified that it was important to include the intent of what we're seeking to do through the findings. So that would be a flag when you make that determination? So if we were to include language that had the word perceived in it online, it would be online 4 that says people without homes or perceived to not have homes. Yes. It strikes me as we don't do that. Well, again, this is the importance of the word perceived in terms of, again, based on the testimony that we received, is that something that, the example was if I was homeless and you were not and you were treated as if you were. That would be a perception. At the end. I'll go with that. Yes. So I understand the reason for wanting to include the word perceived. And on the face of it, I don't feel there's an issue, but there could be a situation where there's an objection to a person being wherever that person is and the reason has nothing to do with a perception that the person is homeless but has to do with something else, which is not necessarily against the law activity or what have you. And so if you have the word perceived in there that could be used as an accusation against, that person could use that word as a reason for pursuing some sort of redress when that is not the situation. So I think it can make it more, it can make it more difficult to address a situation where it's not the basis of perceived homelessness but something else. I'm just concerned about that because it's perceived as pretty open-ended. I mean it looks very self-descriptive, but not necessarily. So it's something to consider. Right, I know I believe so. People have, I think that the key element is to remember that this doesn't prevent somebody taking care of an abnormal course of business. Right. If there's behavior that is not related or linked to, I mean it could be, I mean it's just that idea of, I mean I hear what you're saying, perceived does broaden It's very broad. It does broaden the notion here. Right. You could, as a merchant, you could be accused of prejudice against someone because you perceive that, because that person perceives them as being homeless when in fact it isn't. And yet it could be related to actions which are not necessarily someone breaking the law that the actions would be covered under some sort of civil law. It's just, it's very murky. I understand the reason, but there's always a non-intended consequence to things. So I think before inserting that we really need to fresh that out a little bit more because it's an interest of fairness. You want to be fair to someone who is, if not homeless, certainly looking and or acting in a matter that would lead one to think that they might be homeless. But you don't want to, so you want to protect their rights as human beings, you want to do that. Right. And this goes to, I mean this, I mean it could go from anything, from me having a really bad week and not cleaning myself and not shaving, whatever and being perceived. But I think the more realistic the view is the gentleman who testified who was homeless for 10 years and hasn't, he was homeless for 12 years in his last stretch and hasn't been for 10 years, but maybe everybody knows that person as a homeless person and will perceive him to be homeless even though he's, as he self-describes, is formerly unhoused. So it's, again, this is the reason to discuss this here. It seems like a question you would be in the scenario that you present is that, as Tom said, if a disheveled person walks into a store and is perceived to be a homeless person and is asked to leave that store, that is outright discrimination on the cause of the perception that that store owner had that individual that walked into their store. So I think that's what we're trying to address here, that still plain discrimination. So we're looking to protect homeless people from that, so that perception maybe does some place. And even the general public, I mean, just because you might look what is stereotypically associated with someone who is homeless, doesn't mean anything. I mean, that's my thought. I mean, anybody, I mean, you can, I mean, coming to my house sometimes, if you take a look at like people sitting at a communal table, you have no idea which one is like a low income, you know, employee at one of the farms or owns like a two million dollar house on the lake and pan. It's all perception. Well, on the flip side of not incorporating the language around perception is then you allow, if a case comes before the courts, for the person who was discriminating on them, well, I didn't know they were homeless. So I wasn't discriminating on them on the basis of them being homeless because I had no way to know one way or the other. Because if you give it purely on their housing status, then you have to make a case that this person knew where this person was sleeping at night, which seems to be a very difficult case to prove and not what we're trying to address in this situation. And as an example that we've heard last week, too, we really don't want to be in a situation because he's wearing a seek head pet scarf and I discriminate against him but because I didn't, I mistakenly discriminated based on his religion, we don't want to exempt that behavior and so adding perception is really important because I perceive him to be Muslim even though he wasn't. And we want to make sure that that kind of behavior is, I think that's what we want to capture in this bill is that that kind of behavior is captured and we leave out perception and we allow for this kind of a sort of escape from us because it didn't mean you should be focused on it. Yeah. Yeah, and just to answer why we have a pause here, it looks like we're being visited by students who are wearing V-SAC sweatshirts. You guys are college students or college students to be? To be. To be. To be. Did we start a college program? We should. We're welcome. If you haven't caught the drift we're talking about homeless bill of rights here and note how we just spent seven to eight minutes talking about what the word over and the importance of adding a word to legislation can be. I mean this is one of the things that we do here. So if you're not up on your vocabulary, start because the definitions of words are clearly very important saying what you mean and meaning what you say is always difficult thing to get across in statute sometimes and that's what we're discussing this morning. So, welcome. Enjoy. Thank you. Just observing. Okay.