 Welcome, everybody, to Friday, June 5th meeting of House General, General Housing and Military Affairs of the House Representative of the State of Vermont. We are gathered here today with many of the advocates and representatives from the administration who have testified before us over the last several weeks. I did send an email out earlier today to the committee basically continuing the conversation we started yesterday on the actual working on the actual appropriations of the of the money that the CRF money that has been allocated to housing again as a reminder we've been allocated up to 70 million dollars in tier what's being called tier one spending, which is a proposal that we're going to put together by Wednesday and David Hall is joining us now. And then we have up to 50 million dollars to spend after that in what's called tier two spending which will only be which will only happen after we find out what happens to the $400 million the General Assembly expects to keep in reserve until we find out if we can spend that money on other items that we that we talked about yesterday, which was education, transportation and general fund. To top that off this morning I talked with the speaker, there is there is being worked on now in the Senate, and it's called it's considered a fast track bill and it's an attempt to get money out even a little bit faster than what we would be expecting if we were just simply to turn in our proposal by June 10th and what that would mean is and what that what I've been asked to do is to take a portion of our 70 there's a 75 million first tier money and to carve it off and to carve off a piece of that and suggest an amendment to the Senate bill, which would be happening on Monday and Tuesday to get money out the door even faster. We've taken testimony from Ghasselik of BHCB from Representative CHT, Champlain Housing Trust and others that there are potential units that have been made available or that have been identified as potential purchases that action can be taken fairly quickly on and there are other projects as well that we that we're aware of but not not certainly of all the people that's been done or proposed but the first part of this conversation today I want us to discuss the notion of telling David to draw up some language that we would approve that would then go over to the Senate and again the proposal would be to get this the ball rolling on on the purchase of units and the rehabilitation of units to assist in the transition so that's that's the first part but I see David again David has joined us does anyone have any I just I think I'm just going to start off with does anyone have any objections to us taking a number and the number that has been that I put in the email today was to say $23 million which was about the money I mean the numbers of BHCB had been sharing with us prior to now have been $21.7 million that may not have that that may not have included other projects we've heard about or the potential for other projects that we had heard about including potential purchases by Champlain House of Trust and and then we heard a little bit about the programs in Rutland for instance or or the mobile home project from from HFI not that there's a guarantee that any of these projects would get that money but that that but that there are there's going to be more demand in the 21.7 and so my proposal is to take $23 million and have it suggested in an amendment to the Senate as fast track money we would still be putting together a proposal for the remaining $52 million that would be proposed by Wednesday but does anyone have any objections to draw having David draw up some language or have some language for us that we can consider that would be we would be able to share with the Senate and again you know house rules if you want to rate if you want to comment please raise your hands and and unmute yourself what I call on you representative Kalaki. Thank you chair I just want to make sure I understand so the proposal that is on our committee page right now from HCB so the is pathways included in this is a mobile home park could they apply for these funds and the other regional reasonably specific things it seems to me I just want to make sure I'm clear they could all apply for these funds if it was in fact capitalizing new buildings right yes I mean and Gus if you want to weigh in on that because I think there's two there's two answers it's both yes and no if I'm not mistaken but go ahead Gus do you want to answer Gus be for us so John I mean Jen do you need do you want to weigh in Jen I can and I will concur that sort of two he's coming in and out okay he doesn't know that he's been caught that he's that he can't be heard okay go ahead yeah I'm gonna try to mute him okay yeah go ahead go ahead okay so the HFI proposal because it's capital to create new units they would be able to apply if this funding were to go forward and we would assess that based on how it lines up where there's the greatest need according to AHS data and right suitability for what they're recommending as it compares to the needs of the households that would be served the pathways proposal while we think that housing for services are really important and are going to be part of the overall solution the recommend that would not that's a services component and then would need to be addressed by the legislature separately because what VHTB is proposing and our role in sort of the housing world is to provide capital the bricks and mortar the creating the units rehab and units so the HFI would be something that could come to us the pathways proposal is not the kind of thing that VHTB funds or you would be asking us to do what we do if you move forward with this and we're preparing to be able to do this if that's what the committee and the legislature decides to do so we would put out a request for letters of interest and invite people to respond and HMI would be one of the entities we would invite to respond. All right and just one clarification so the pathways was to expand their services to other towns that they're not currently in so there's no capital needs in that expansion it's all services I know you're not pathways John but I John I think the answer to that is yes they it's it's a proposal to expand it's it's an expo it's a proposal to expand their services statewide and then there's another million dollars that was a part of the request component that would actually provide the rental assistance or other services that they I got thank you very much I appreciate it. Representative Hango. Thank you I just wanted to clarify that the fast track money that we're talking about actually not the money the fast track proposal that we're talking about do you want to get that out by the end of today. Yes. Okay thanks. Yes that would be ideal. And I will pop David David Hall are you can you join us for a minute. Yes you hear me okay. Yes. Sorry I'm yes sir what's up. Hi David Hall Legislative Council. Welcome you you I can't believe you have great beards. I'm sorry we yes so so David we have not really had an opportunity to work with you directly on on the work that you've done over the last week or so on the package that you were asked to put together based on starting with the administration's proposal. But I really want to separate out the conversation for a minute and talk about what it would take on the legal end in terms of what what would be the language that we would then share with the Senate in terms of saying I mean the Senate can make up their own I suppose but this is part of the they haven't been taking as much testimony on housing issues as we have but so we've been asked to kind of take this this 23 million dollar chunk and draft an amendment that can be shared with the Senate much like we did with S333 and so I'm just curious like what is it from what would we need from you in order to have something to look at or to vote on just for that just for that small piece. I would need to write it. I have I know that I have somewhere the proposal. I actually just asked Jen and she could just send me what the most concurrent proposal is so I could base language on that. I'll tell you that I Senate economic development has just voted out sort of the phase one emergency grants program through tax and commerce. It's a it's a six page ish bill that just basically says 50 million dollars to tax to give money to businesses immediately that meet these criteria. You come up with the formula. You come up with the amount within these guidelines and parameters. It's very straightforward same with commerce 20 million dollars for everybody else. And so at this point it's pretty straight forward drafting. It's quick. It's short. Sweet. It's money for you know the purpose and you know a basic statement that says whatever we do with this we have to be sure it complies with the case. So so in terms of in terms of any kind of direction that we would give to the H.C.B. it would basically say if I heard you correctly it basically say 23 million dollars is appropriated to the H.C.B. for the following you know it's in order to capitalize the purchase of units if we want to write an emphasis on family units or to to say that we want to make sure that projects are I mean are are are what I mean I'm just okay I hear what you're saying. So my my my my I guess my fundamental legal guidance under the CARES Act the guidance issued pursuant to the CARES Act and the FAQs is that the money be used to provide assistance to individuals you know in response to due to because of necessary due to the public health emergency right. So if we are going to do anything with housing we have to be able to first in the legislation but also actually in the implementation we have to be sure that we can draw the straight line that runs from people who are experiencing adverse health and economic impacts due to the crisis and then that line runs right to here is the housing and or services that we are providing on a before December 30th to respond to those health and economic needs that are due to the crisis. So it's not a hard lift you know a lot of people have a lot of need and for both health and economic reasons. We certainly have the flexibility as a state to say what we think a necessary and appropriate expenditure of those funds is where we may where we would potentially run into problems is where you know that that direct line that that direct nexus between harm and remediation of effects due to the crisis begins to blur into things like we want more market rate housing or we just need more housing units. I mean we can have both right and the guidance is clear that the state can own and keep assets. We can give economic assistance to people to provide shelter address homelessness economic impacts. We can do all of these things and you know those benefits can continue beyond December 30th but we have to take all the action and the action all has to be in response to the crisis with sort of a remedial basis more than anything else because that's the way the guidance is structured. This is designed to respond to harm that has occurred during this period because of the pandemic. Right. So we're saying we're saying I mean we there's a there's a tough question here between the word in the language capacity versus versus need the remedial need. You know even though we have to create units that that face that remedial need I think I've heard you say that that's OK. I mean we're not taking we're not we're not focusing on another area of of housing needs which we know there are plenty but we're addressing this specific need with this with this money and that's and and those needs are covered in some of the overarching language in the bill that already that that that Senate's working on. That's the through line that you're talking the through line that you're talking about. So there's there's less. I would say that as far as the flexibility given for direct economic support to businesses I would say that that is the most permissive potential use of coronavirus funds. The guidance and the FAQs are explicit that is within the discretion of the state to decide what is necessary and how they help businesses and you know as long as the harm the business incurred was due to the crisis you're good. The the the issue I'm raising in housing is that it's just it's simply that the population of people being served and the activity doing the serving is in response to harm caused by the crisis to that individual. So if you wanted to build or renovate housing it could be for the purpose of housing a homeless person moving a homeless person from temporary to some other temporary or permanent housing to mitigate health and economic impacts. It could be for you know buying or building new housing as long as the person you're housing has that need. It could be moving a person from a current housing situation that is unsafe for some reason due to the pandemic to some other housing situation for instance there were overcrowding two families living in one dwelling unit. I don't know what I mean use your imagination but again the need has to be due to the crisis that's all and it's in the line is between the population the need and the response. So the VHCB proposal was more specifically again I think is Jen started to talk started to explain was for capital expenses again we've talked about this about the the opportunities to purchase units. And Gus can you speak for a minute. If you're if you're not fuzzy. Can you speak for a minute on the language that you just that that just showed up on our on our page. It's appropriation style language and I think it's it may be a little bit broad for the fast track purposes but I think it captured. What David's talking about. Chairman we'd be happy also and see a direct line and that was the instructions when we were first asked to consider this between the crisis. The fact that 2000 Vermonters are in motels. They were put in motels because the situations they were in were not safe and healthy and we can't go back to those situations. So we're trying to create some safer alternatives for those households and we certainly would be happy to work with council and make sure that that line is as clear as possible and also have that reflected in any solicitations we make of letters of interest from our community partners. Representative Hango. Thank you. I just want to ask David just to be sure that I heard him correctly that the the parameters that we're working with are to with this money are to help people who because of a direct result because of this crisis we need to rehouse them. But we've kind of already done that and I know that it's not a sustainable model economically or socially. But how can we justify building new or rehabbing old properties to move people again as being a direct result of COVID-19. I just want to make sure that we're going down the right road. Sure. I hear you. So I again I think there is a fair amount of discretion in the guidance to states and local units of government to decide what is necessary and what is necessary due to the public health emergency. And you know to that end to speak to that flexibility. I mean states local governments do not have to pre approve with Treasury on how they're going to spend the money. There's a fact there's a specific answer to an FAQ that says the Treasury is depending on the judgment and expertise of states and local governments determine what the appropriate use of the funds is then the parameters. So I think there's a lot of discretion as long as you know you're responsive to the terms of the act and the guidance. I see your point that you know we had a population of people who are not housed at all. And they're currently being housed on a temporary basis. Does that end the equation? Are they housed and now we're done. I don't I don't think we need to. I wouldn't read that narrowly. I mean you know as your attorney I'm not here to tell you yes or no. You can or cannot do something. What I want to be explicit with this committee is I have been with every other committee is to tell you that there is a continuum of risk. It's my job to count its risk and frankly to be a little bit conservative. So we've had a lot of discussions about all right we can do grants to businesses. Can we do loans? How long can they last? What happens if things happen after December 30th etc. I think I've taken a pretty conservative approach frankly to analyzing those kinds of questions. In this context I don't I don't see an issue with moving people from you know a temporary housing situation either to another temporary housing situation that's better or to a permanent housing situation that's definitely better. The reason being the guidance says that the costs and the damage and the harm has been incurred and then the money spent obligated paid out services completed between March 1st and December 30th. So I think there's at least some recognition. I think there's a lot of recognition that this is ongoing that there have have been and will continue to be stages. So first stage is just get people out of homeless encampments for instance or just get businesses through until May and then we'll do the next phase and in fact that's what's happening with this economic development bill where you know initially they're just going to spend $70 million just to try to get businesses a bridge until the next round of funding can come along. So I feel comfortable with a proposal that moves and phases in that way. You know again provided that the eyes on the population and the nature of the harm and the relationship to being caused by the crisis that we're in. Thank you. I just wanted to be clear about that because I really didn't think about that angle until you spoke earlier. So thank you for that. I appreciate your conservatism. Pleasure. All right. We have a number of questions coming up. Representative Triano then Kalaki. I think you just touched on it David that what I'm seeing that the nexus here that connects the compliance with this COVID relief these COVID relief funds are that in spite of well in January we heard there were 1000 homeless Vermonters and in March we heard there were 2000. So the nexus would be that these folks that were temporarily housed as a result of the COVID 19 situation are now now fit into this category where they would be displaced as a result of this same action if we don't do something is that yeah I you know the the interesting thing about the housing question again is that it is a twofold issue and it's both economic and public health right. I mean whereas trying to get restaurants and you know other places back in the business to preserve economic likely livelihoods is mostly an economic issue. There are definite and direct health consequences to people's living arrangements. Whether they have housing whether housing is adequate whether housing provides sufficient ability to house in place if that is indeed the requirement. So I think this one is is unique in that way that it definitely touches equally on both issues and that question. OK, thanks. And again just as a reminder this first part and this is helpful but the first question is on the table for us is shall we carve out $23 million in the fast track and and this is all helpful to make that decision. But I just want to remind you of that representative Kalaki and then Wallace and then Son. Well I'm in favor of this. I think it's a great way to move forward and David I just don't know if you've seen that the HCB proposal itself but in the proposal introduction it says to cover capital expenses necessary to secure shelter and housing for homeless households in order to mitigate COVID-19 effects and enable compliance with COVID-19 public health precautions. So it seems to me that language covers exactly what well my read of that is it's covering what you say we need and maybe it could be that simple that we in. But yes, thank you. I have I do have it. I've seen it. I agree that that the language is framed is great. That's the right purpose is a permissible purpose. I you know it also has to be implemented in a permissible way. So as Gus was suggesting you know whether they are soliciting participants partners or whatever and then whatever action steps they take that you know there has to be that level of faithfulness to the act and the guidance all the way through and I mentioned that because the consequences to the state itself if the feds conduct an audit and determine that the state or a recipient have used the money for an improper purpose under the ads. So it's explicit that if that occurs then it is the state itself not the recipient of the money that is responsible and liable to the federal government. So it's incumbent upon me to tell you that representative waltz. Well, I think my question may have been answered by the previous two questions. But let me get at it anyway. I'm in favor of fast tracking. First of all to that question. I'm just wondering how granular the fed federal federal regulations are. And I think you may have answered this David that we really have to make that correct that direct tie in to the harm because they because of the kind of temporary housing that we put them in and that we are remedying that and do we have to be specific about numbers? No, I don't think so. So I don't I don't know how many of you have had the opportunity yet to see the most recent May 28 guidance, excuse me, FAQs that put gloss on the guidance which is issued to help interpret the act. But they are incredibly non specific in most areas. There are a few places where they really go out of their way to make the point for instance that you cannot use coronavirus funds for revenue replacement for government. So in the housing context, you can't use coronavirus money to help people pay their property taxes unless they're avoid foreclosure or to pay their utility bills. If it's to a public utility, because they do not want you to use this money for revenue replacement for governments. On the other hand, it's the guidance is very explicit about being able to use the money. And let me read the quote to you. It is expenses for care for homeless populations provided to mitigate COVID-19 effects and enable compliance with COVID-19 public health precautions. So, you know, in the in the small universe of subjects that are directly addressed by the guidance, homelessness is one of them. And it's pretty clear that we do have the discretion to use the money for that population. I'm not suggesting that it's limited to the homeless population. I don't think that's the case. I think any housing related need that's based on economic or health concerns is permissible as long as it meets the other requirements. Yeah, thank you, David. It's very, I think it's very clear. Representative Zahn. Okay, hold on. Representative Zahn, we've got that issue again, where I can see you talking. You are unmuted. But I'm not sure what the this happened to me yesterday as well. It's just a glitch of some sort. Do you want to write a question? Okay, he'll log back in. So further further questions on the the fast track. I mean, David, do you have enough to I mean, essentially, it looks like what we're asking for is we we are we want to appropriate $23 million to BHCB for this purpose. And this is why is that I mean, as as representative Kalaki was looking at or what's in the BHCB document, is that sufficient for you to have something? Yes, it is. I I feel like there's one more issue and I want to raise for the committee, just because again, my job is to help you navigate the sort of the continuum of risk. It's a very small point. But the guidance is explicit that the that a state or unit of local government is able to purchase assets. If assets are sold before December 30, that money has to either be repurposed for an eligible expenditure, or return to the Treasury. It is silent on what happens if you sold that asset after December 30. So I assume that you can keep it that it suggests. I want to I guess the note of caution that I want to make is that the guidance and the FAQs be solely in terms of states and units of local government as that is defined in the ads. So I think that it is okay for if part of what we're talking about is intermediary organizations purchasing assets for permissible purposes with COVID funding that's available to the state. I think that that is okay under the act. But I cannot tell you that it is 100% okay under the act, because I don't know that and nobody knows that. I think the issue is complicated further by how we characterize some of the V organizations for purposes of the act. So for instance, in the economic development context, you know, I raised early on the question of whether Vita, the Vermont Economic Development Authority, is part of the state? Is it a separate entity? It's a quasi governmental organization that we would in other contexts call an instrumentality of the state. But for purposes of the Coronavirus Relief Funds, what does that mean? I think the argument is good that organizations like Vita, VHCB, VSAC, VHFA are instrumentalities and considered part of the state because they are created by statute. They are funded largely through public dollars. They are subject to the jurisdiction of the General Assembly and the governor through legislation. So I feel very comfortable with a proposal that would include, for instance, VHCB buying a motel or something like that. But again, I just, I can't tell you with a 100% certainty, because it's not addressed in the guidance that that authority to own assets beyond December 30th extends to non-state entities. So is that the question you're bringing up in terms of, is that a question of saying, well, if VHCB takes a proposal and gives, gives the Shempling Housing Trust $3 million in order to buy a building with a series of units, where does, is this what you're talking about in terms of the complications, whether this VHC, are you saying that VHCB has to buy this unit or could they grant the money to these other organizations? I'm saying that if I were structuring a deal, and I wanted to be 100% conservative and confident about its compliance with the guidance, then I would have the state buy the building and lease it to an organization to operate it on behalf of the state. However, I'm not saying that that's necessary. Again, I can't tell you that there's a right answer. All I can do is tell you that on the risk continuum, the proposal, the suggestion that you just made is not 100% certain. I feel like it's 95% certain. And the reason I feel okay about it, again, first, the nature of VHCB, second, there's another question in the guidance that says, can a state, or excuse me, says, can a county, for instance, pre-pay a one or two year lease for housing to basically provide temporary housing for, you know, workers who are brought in to address COVID-19 issues? And the answer in the guidance is, only if pre-paying that lease, a one or two year lease for that kind of housing would be something that you do in the scope of your normal operations. I think the implication there is that you can't try to end run the December 30th deadline by pre-paying a two year lease on a building that when you normally wouldn't do that. And it's a similar calculus when people are talking about, you know, for instance, just giving businesses loans and letting them hold on to the money for a longer period. That's a bad example. That's not a good example. The bottom line is, it matters, it seems to matter under the guidance, what is a normal operational activity for a state or unit of local government when considering what an appropriate expenditure is. And so that gives me comfort because the state, all states regularly use intermediary organizations to implement programs, whether it's nonprofits, whether it's state instrumentalities like VHCB, whether it's, you know, agencies, departments and divisions or things are outsourced. I think that is a regular practice in the course of state government. That also gives me comfort. Okay. Representative Sot, do you want to try to chime in? Is it working now? Yes, excellent, excellent. Yeah, I'm sure base thrilled to hear from me. Well, one of my questions was just addressed because I was going to ask you. Really? I can hear you. Okay. You're in and out. You're in and out. Yeah. How about now? No, I can see I'm not okay. There I have the green indicator here. I was going to ask about the quasi governmental nature of the nonprofits that we're dealing with. But I also wanted to ask a question about the nature of nonprofits generally, because I know, as you said, there's a real fast track for businesses. And there's all as I've seen the language, there's often businesses and qualified nonprofits or eligible nonprofits. So I was curious how much leeway there is with these eligible nonprofits in terms of allocating money. And then one other piece is I think it was I think we've heard testimony to the effect that other states have already acted on these various capacities. And in terms of your continuum of risk, I guess we have sort of our potential lawsuit partners already out there that we can link with. So the more states that have acted ahead of us, I feel even more comfortable in this continuum of risk, because inevitably, if there wasn't audit, we would probably be suffering in the same kind of scrutiny that these other states were sharing with us. Sure. So to your first question, the guidance and the act itself do not limit participation based on profit or nonprofit status. Really, the limitation, as I mentioned earlier, is when you're giving money to governments and particularly state and units of local government, you can't do that as revenue replacement. You can't give money for things that are already budgeted for in the most recently approved budget as of March 27. So you start to really get into some thorny issues when you're talking about, for instance, giving public employees some sort of compensation unless they're really working on COVID-19 stuff or, again, trying to use money to uncoup unpaid tax revenue. Those are big no-no's. But in this context, obviously, any monies that you're talking about right now were not budgeted for. They're not planned. We're not part of any approved project in the most recent budget. And I feel like not only the work, but also the administrative costs could be paid with a lot of comfort through coronavirus funds. I mean, I'll say that about administrative costs. Again, it's the same thing. It's clear that a government can recover administrative costs for implementing public, excuse me, for implementing coronavirus related programs. It just doesn't address the issue of whether you could use those funds for intermediaries. So, for instance, if we were working with a bank, could the bank recover its corona administrative costs for helping to implement a coronavirus program? Probably, but I can't give you 100% certainty because the guidance doesn't address that. On the second point, let me say one more thing about the nonprofit. So, to the extent there is any limitation whatsoever, that would right now come from the state itself. But in the economic development bill of which this might become a part, nonprofits are included. The second point you've made, do we take comfort from other states of using similar mechanisms? Probably. To the extent that the more states that do it, maybe the more acceptable or favorably treasury would look upon it. But do you remember that audits are individual to states as our liabilities? So, if we spend three million dollars, Treasury audits Vermont and determines the expense was not permissible under the Act, then Vermont alone is on the hook for three million dollars. But I guess that should be one more piece of your risk calculus. And that is, you know, you're also taking a calculated risk about whether you get audited and if you do what Treasury determines and depending on what they determine, whether you have to pay money back. And it could be the case that you're willing to take that risk because you're willing to spend the money anyway. So, try it with the coronavirus funds and it doesn't work. You know, you pay Treasury back in three years. I'm not suggesting that that's an issue in this particular context, but it has been suggested in others. In the case, David, in the case, though, again, here's the question. We're about to allocate money to or to propose to allocate money to a number of different places. But today, you know, this hour we'll deal with, as an example, this 23 million dollars to VHCB. Now, as far as process goes, we're allocating this money for them to use it in a way that's been deemed legal by many other people other than us or you or whomever. If that money is then allocated to them through the Senate process comes back to us and it comes through us, goes through appropriations, goes to the government. I mean, there's still many steps along the way that's going to. Maybe there's more of a clarification of what the risk calculus is. But in the end, the use of that money doesn't stop here. I mean, VHCB might get a memo or or AHS might get a memo or someone else might get a Department of Labor or ACCD might get a memo in three months. It says you can or can't do this. Inactions will be made. I'm just yeah. Yeah. So I'm just it puts us in a bind because, of course, you know, we want to wring our hands over what the I want to wring my hands over what the risk calculus is. But by the same token, this is an extraordinary circumstance and we're trying to at least move what we can. Yeah, so without being irresponsible. Look, I'm an attorney right in yours. And so it's my job to be conservative and tell you the risk. But I don't want to leave anybody with the impression that I feel uncomfortable with the proposal as I've seen it from the ACB because I don't feel because it directs addresses public health and economic needs due to homelessness and other risks because of the crisis to feel very comfortable with it. I just my job to tell you whether or not I am certain something is or is not. And, you know, that's what I do. I feel good about this one. If you came to me and said we're going to keep five million dollars just in case we need it in March, I tell you you can't do that. But that's not what you're doing. Right. So and David, are you still scheduled to be to leave us at two 30? I am, but I don't have to. They can wait. So so committee, I just want to kind of call the question, first of all, on the fast track. Is it okay to I guess is it okay to ask David to create some language as as obviously as quickly as possible, but just also as I mean, it sounds like it's a relatively simple thing. But but do we agree with the concept of carving on in Boston, the tier one allocation that we've received to give to this crisis to this fast track bill that's going to be taken up in the Senate, which should come back to us by the end of it by the middle to end of next week. Do you want to use that little participant hand? You know, you want to put your hands you do it by the show of hands on the participant. All right, so I'm seeing yes is I'm going to man, I don't have that button to take down all the hands. So if it's I'll lower your hands by yourself. So is there it looked like everybody was saying yes, representative. So was there anybody opposed? All right, so David, if there is a way for you to write something as simple as what we've talked about, something that can be utilized as a an amendment that we can share the language with the Senate so that they can use it next week. With our kind of our good housekeeping seal of approval, I guess is the best level of approval. We can give it right now. And then we'll see it again next week. Right, I will turn it around and I will share it with you. OK, thank you. All of this is very good foundational work for the rest of the story. We have we have requests that are both capital and service requests and the difficulty is in the service side of things. So I wanted to hold off on that for the time being, but I do not want to ignore the fact that even if there is the capital purchases that are being proposed over the next couple of months, so we don't lose sight of the fact that those services, as we heard about on yesterday, are really necessary for the financial viability of those of these projects ongoing. I invited someone who hasn't testified in our committee this year, Michael Monti from Shimplink Housing Trust to join us along with the stuff that we've been talking about. There was one category about renovating existing shelters. Now, while the focus has been on one hand, wouldn't it be great to get everybody out of shelters? I think the idea is in reality, it wouldn't be great if we can get most people out of shelters. There's always going to I think I think it's hard to say that we will never need shelters. But there's been discussion. It's been a little bit quiet about putting money aside from this for shelter renovation and making them healthier and safer. And I wanted to the proposal that VHCB sent this morning to us. Increase that number from from a lower number to ten million dollars, which at this point in time is fits into our allocation to a degree. And I just wanted Michael to comment on that. And then just as a just what I have on my list here after I talked to Michael and anyone else who wants to chime in on the shelter issue. I do want to go to Commissioner Hanford because the other quasi new conversation is about foreclosure. Commissioner Hanford has talked about it, but we have not seen any kind of. We haven't had more than a general conversation about that. So just in terms of being on deck, Commissioner Hanford, you're on you're on deck. So Michael, thank you for joining us and welcome to the General Housing and Mildes Air Affairs Committee. Thank you very much, Chairman and I appreciate time. Chris Donnelly and I have been in regular conversation at the work that the legislature has been doing and by honor your service and the work that you've been doing in this context, especially. So we're engaged very much in the homeless arena. We work very closely with homeless service providers. I've been meeting regularly over the last few months on a almost daily, sometimes three times a week basis, coordinating sort of our response during COVID. Part of what has happened is Harbor Place has been stood up as an isolation and quarantine facility. As you know, Harbor Place was a fairly good arrangement between us and the state of Vermont in terms of providing short term care to folks who are homeless and a fairly low lower cost with better results. And we continue to hope that that facility comes back and does that. But in our discussions of the homeless folks over the last few few months, we sort of realized that, in fact, many of the people who might be in shelters and motels right now are actually in those locations because they're not able to be managed well within the existing homeless shelter structure. So we've had some discussions internally and as sort of as a community. And also we've had very specific discussions with the staffs of the and domestic violence. And that particular group works with a group of folks who are homeless, who will be homeless, no matter how hard we change or try, meaning victims of domestic violence become homeless and instantaneously, often enough and find themselves in those conditions. And there's not an economic reason in the first step, meaning it's not a loss of jobs or something else like that or chronic homelessness. And so a lot of the folks in the hotel motels right now and a lot of folks who come to Harbor Place in fact are victims of domestic violence. And one of the things that we would like to do working with them and part of the what will respond if funds are available is to create a better shelter so that people can in fact be safer and so that they can actually manage more people than they are right now in their current system. And so that in fact, if something like sheltering in place is the health directive, because of another pandemic or this pandemic as it extends in time, then we will have something that in fact will really meet the needs of folks who are victims of violence as well as reduce sort of the impact and cost to the state of Vermont to put people up and motels scattered throughout Chittenden County. And in conversations again with other homeless providers, you know, we have sort of looked at five million dollars or sort of a dollar amount that that will work in terms of knowing that we could impact homeless shelters as they are now. Again, steps working with costs, working with the new place who are the principal homeless providers in Chittenden County. And our thought is that in around the rest of the state of Vermont, because we just basically coordinate with the continuum of care here in Chittenden County. But that in fact, that is probably true in other places. We know, and those organizations know that they need to get these funds going and use them in a fairly short period of time. And we are ready to do that. And so so as a group, so I would urge the committee to keep keep an eye on that opportunity. I know VACV has been very clear in their support in terms of doing something like this. And this essentially if we could think of it as resiliency as we did with Irene, this is really the same thing as next time this happens or as this is happening now, we have something much better in place to ensure that people are safe and healthy. And so the $5 million number you had is a specific to Chittenden County. Just what you're what just with the folks that you work with. Yeah. So, you know, of the of the couple of thousand in the state for 400 plus households are in Chittenden County. And, you know, it's a fairly large number that can't be managed in smaller settings and needs to be, you know, have this fairly sophisticated and larger system to respond to. But yes, that is just Chittenden County. Representative Hango. Sorry, trying to unmute myself. I'm just hearing about Chittenden County leads me to wonder. I know there are some specific pro proposals that Rutland County and Franklin County have and I'm wondering if this is the the arena that we need to talk about those or at least allowing the allocation of money to specific regions. I know Representative Kalaki brought this up a few days ago. And I was kind of at that time more in favor of a statewide allocation. And then letting the agencies, the partners who really knew where the needs were divide up. But I guess I didn't realize that there are some fairly robust plans already in the making if they can get funding. So is this the conversation to talk about regional funding? Well, I'm going to pass that to Gus if he's available because my experience with VHCB in particular as this kind of umbrella organization that doesn't do the funding, right? I mean traditionally VHCB manages a lot of money and they they manage it up. But they're not the ones who are primary funders. But but they if you take a look at their list of projects, they are the universal across the state of Vermont. They meant, you know, really one of the one of their things is to make sure that every corner of Vermont is their needs are addressed. But I'll punt that to Gus and have him address that for you, Lisa. So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I will just say that over the years that I've worked at the board and sometimes so long ago that the current operators would not know it. We have funded pretty much every shelter in the state. So that's among the work we've done. We've worked with Spectrum in Burlington. We've worked with the Bennington Coalition for the Homeless. We've worked with Josh Davis and Brattleboro. So as our as the proposal that Jen sent to staff and as posted today indicates, as Michael just indicated, we've identified a clear need of five million dollars in one part of the state. We think that those needs probably are representative around the state to help other shelters. We know the one in Barry is not in its current condition CDC compliant. That's part of why it was completely emptied out. And we would be happy to do the work to do an assessment of how much need there is all over the state with the shelter providers. You know, they are usually coming to us once every five to 10 years. We've done a fair amount of work, though, with the John Graham Shelter in recent years in Addison County. So then we don't we don't hear from them regularly, but we'd be happy to take this on if you asked us to and make funds available to the whole state and certainly get back to the committee in a few weeks as quickly as we can about what others around the state see as their short term to be accomplished by December 30th needs to become CDC compliant. But if the need in Chittenden County is five million dollars, we certainly think that it's likely, but we don't know it that we would need double that amount to serve the whole state. And Gus, the following up on kind of not quite the regionalism, but also we've talked, you've testified about about identifying the different groups in one of people who are currently homeless. And one of them is families with children. And regardless of where they are across the state, do you need legislative direction to make those things a priority? Or is that something that is considered a normal course of business with your partners? I think it's a normal course of business. Obviously if you put something in writing that says, I think our focus with both the funds, you've just talked about fast tracking and assisting shelters will be in two directions. And one will be to house families with children because we know that the trauma that children being homeless, the results of that trauma for children who are homeless. And the second group will be the individuals who have significant needs for supportive housing and wraparound services, many of whom probably need clinical needs that will not dissipate in the next six to 12 months. They're going to need what we call permanent supportive housing in order to maintain their housing. So I think those are the groups that probably ought to be at the top of anybody's list for permanent housing. I think other programs are, you know, there are some people out there who can resolve on themselves or with a little bit of help from the rental assistance program that Josh's agency has put forth with several months rent going to be able and security deposit going to be able to get back into the housing market because there are homeless people who actually do have income from employment right now. So I think there's a variety of solutions, but we certainly would be focused on those two groups. And so yes, families with children would be at the top of anybody's list. And some of those families with children might be in the category that Tony was talking about yesterday that might be, you know, very short term. I might just need a leg up and some of them may need, again, as we mentioned, more services than more permanent services than than just that. So committee, that's something that is when we start to allocate funds, again, thinking in terms of tier one, tier two. Again, tier one is going to be something that is we think is needs to get out the door as soon as possible. And tier two is is something that is either a continuation of those priorities. I mean, I have a hard time saying that one of these items that we've talked about over the last weeks is less important than others or to assign them priorities. But it may may well be that we say, well, OK, we can we can put out x percentage of this amount of money to this, you know, to this purpose. And then in the tier two, we might go in here is four million dollars more or what have you. So just keep that in mind as well as we as we start thinking about how to allocate the funding. Michael, do you have anything? I want to be conscious of your time. I know that you're on a limited schedule. Appreciate that. No, I just I appreciate the committee's support. But you know, we are we appreciate the difficulty of moving quickly. We are trying to move quickly and be ready. So as soon as you make the funds available, we'll work with all the organizations that we work with to put it to good use. And I think you'll see a good response from around the state in terms of responding to this. And again, it's a direct response to COVID as much as anything else. And so thank you for your time. I appreciate it. And just to be clear, this is to take situations that have tended to be over. I mean, we visited or I know I have I've visited the Seminary Street building for good good Samaritan Haven. I'm not sure, Tommy, if you've been there, but it it doesn't meet the CDC purposes for as much work as it does. I mean, so I'm assuming that the money that would be allocated under those circumstances would be certainly would be to make them healthy or to keep them healthy first and foremost, whether it's social distancing, whether it's basic or the basic layout even of those of those facilities. That's basic. That's the essential idea here is to sort of know that the shelter system that we have now can in fact manage the number of homeless people we have better. A lot of the shelters were emptied and that's a lot of the folks who are in the motel system now and when they're in the shelters, they get higher levels of services and it can be placed in regular housing to coordinated care. And that's more difficult to do when they're scattered about in different motels and different locations all across the state. So really will strengthen the system of serving homelessness and get people into permanent housing a lot faster. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for coming in. I appreciate it. And Gus, yep. Yeah, Mr. Chairman, this may be beyond what you can do with the fast tracking. But to the extent that what we're trying to do is get work done by December 30th. If you put anything, it can do anything more than 23 million in the fast tracking for this population. That will just get the ball rolling, get people planning, get them to get in touch with contractors because they know something may be possible down the road. So I don't know if you have that capacity today, but if you did, I would, at some amount, I would encourage you to add that in. And no, thank you for that. I mean, I think where this fast track was a new addition to the tier one, tier two concept that I worked with for all the 24 hours. And so the idea is if we can get this language out right now, we're talking about a deadline of next Wednesday for the next, for the tier one language. So it's all gonna happen pretty quickly right on top of the other ones. So, Tony, you had your hand up. I just thought that I would take a moment since Tony got from capstone. Yeah. And then just by again, I would encourage you to keep building. Part of our plan is that we would have a hub which would be a new CDC compliant shelter that would also pull together our overflow guests. So currently we, in the winter time, we spread out over three locations. And as it was stated, it's really difficult to engage everyone and get them into the system when they're in three different locations only for the evening hours. So, our plan for this hub is not only to get all of our currently homeless folks kind of in the same area, but to provide micro apartments on the second floor for those folks who need to build rental references or who might be willing to take that next step, but still are going to need a lot of the support from the shelter staff that they have really come to count on and trust in their world. So I can't say enough how much the shelter systems, I think throughout the state really do need to be prioritized, not necessarily just to grow bigger shelters, but better spaces, more trauma-informed spaces that can really help folks move on, not just get a dry, warm night to sleep in. So thank you guys for taking a look at that. Yep, thank you for that. All right, I'm gonna go right over to, I'm sorry if I feel like I'm speeding here, I am having an afternoon coffee and we have so much to cover. Josh, Commissioner Hanford. Commissioner Hanford is probably on his third or fourth stop of the day. He has language that was shared in your mailbox and is on our page that has to do with the foreclosure proposal and a series of money. Again, we have, we've only heard about it. We haven't considered it. I thought 24 hours ago that this would be more of a commerce concept because of their connection directly with banking, but that seems to be shifting, the potential responsibility seems to be shifting back to us as a housing committee. So Josh, help us untie this knot a little bit and tell us what you're thinking, please. Sure, thanks. Good afternoon. Well, you got me out of one of those because I was supposed to be in house commerce right now when they were gonna take this up. But it's been kicked back over to you guys. So this is really a, ultimately a foreclosure prevention, but it's really mortgage assistance is what's going on here. You know, as you know, Vermont has one of the highest home ownership rates in the country and probably one of the highest low income homeowner rates in the country. Most banks, certainly all Vermont banks that originate mortgage and credit unions, everyone's in sort of forbearance right now. That's not exactly true with some of the national sort of mortgage lenders out there. They haven't universally offered that. We've had a number of meetings with sort of a coalition of folks that are working this arena. We've been meeting a few times to understand what the need is, how a program like this could work, who potentially could administer it. And it's a pretty basic concept. We know that some of these Vermont banks that three months forbearance is gonna be ending like this month, but more likely there's gonna be more sort of concern come July, August, September as these temporary forbearance come off and folks are not gonna have their income restored enough to either pay, that's often added to the end of their loan terms in many cases, but others they're expected to pay that sort of three month forbearance right at one time and a lump sum, that's gonna be difficult with folks still having reduced incomes. And so this would be a program that helps address that need. Once again to be a needs-based. We've worked with Legal Aid, VHFA, the Credit Union Association, the Bankers Association and a number of other folks to talk about what the elements of the program would be. Once again, it could be flexible as far as a one month, two months, what we landed on is in order for this six million to go very far and help very enough people, we can't stretch it more than six months. The money would run out really fast. So that's been a cap we've all agreed on. As far as income eligibility, what AMI area median income level are we going up to? That's an open question. Folks that are at 100%, 120% AMI may be just in just as much need of some mortgage assistance as someone that's 60, 80% AMI. So that's an open question, but we've generally agreed on the areas that are, there's a basic understanding for how this would work. This is cash benefits, similar to the rental assistance, rental reage, but for folks that have mortgages to keep them from entering foreclosure process down the road due to loss of income directly related to COVID. The six million dollar number may not nearly be enough. It might be exactly right. We're struggling with trying to find what the exact amount of need here is. And just like the other two programs that the administration proposed, the 42 million for rental assistance and eight million for the rehab to rehouse homeless, we suggest there be a relief valve in here to move funding among the three different programs as the exact need plays out. No one wants to get this wrong just because we needed to settle on an exact number. It's about serving the real need out there and think it's smart to allow some sort of adjustment among these three programs come the end of August, September, if their need seems to be higher in one area and lower in another. And with the general sort of nature of the legislation that's being put together to use this current relief money, keeping it flexible and open is the same process we've laid out here. But with the framework behind the scenes that stakeholders have worked out that this is the generally how the program's gonna work. Here's the maximum number of months, the maximum household income, all those sort of would be developed and put into the program administration but it doesn't need to be in the language at that detail to keep things moving. So I'm happy to answer any questions that come up from that quick overview. I know Wendy Morgan's also on here and she's been involved in this since the beginning. So yeah, I'll just see what questions come up. So we do have a couple of questions. I'll start though with, this is residential, correct? Correct, residential only. And- From my style, obviously, yeah. Yep, right, not second home mortgages, but homestead, basically homestead mortgages. And the other thing that popped into my head was just a reminder that with this idea, the way that the general assembly is taking the look right now in terms of how to handle these funds, we're talking about tier one, tier two, and almost saying, okay, well, maybe, maybe for a March one till October one is one, or until August or September one, we come back. We take a chunk of money now and put it into tier one. So maybe it's not $42 million. Maybe it's a lesser amount, maybe it's a greater amount, but just, I mean, that's part of our process going forward in the next few days is anticipating that goes against a little bit of what we've heard may happen with, we may run into some friction about how we're gonna, how we're supposed to spend all this money and whether or not there's actually gonna be a tier two. So I just wanna keep that in mind as we're talking about this as well. So I have Rep. Sen. Triano and then Kalaki, I thought and Rep. Hango is your hand up or down. No, okay, thank you. So Rep. Sen. Triano. Thank you. I guess for the sake of not sounding over simplistic, why aren't we approaching banks and asking them to extend mortgages out by three months for these three months of mispayments, Josh? They are already extended. There's no foreclosures happening right now. All the Vermont banks and credit unions have already given up to, in some cases, six months. And if they have a GSA back loan, it's up to a year, but they can't wipe away the payments due. When those four... I'm not suggesting that. I'm suggesting taking the three months that have been missed and putting them on the tail end of the mortgage to extend the mortgage out by three months. That's happening in some cases, for sure, not universally with mortgages that don't have any sort of backing behind them. Some of them need that payment. They need their funds rolling in to keep their borrowing happening. And the reality is folks coming off of that are still gonna... Many folks are still gonna have reduced incomes. So just because it was added to the three months at the end of their 20-year mortgage, they're gonna have trouble paying the next three soon as they come off that. And you get into fall, you gotta fill up the oil tank and there's going to be... And this is not at a mere $2,000 assistance. This is only able to serve 3,000 homeowners. We have many, many low-income homeowners that even coming off of a forbearance period are going to be struggling to pay their bills. And, you know, in the discussion that Chairman Stevens just mentioned about how much we allocate here and there, you know, I'm just trying to express that between the rental assistance and mortgage assistance that these dollars are relatively low-cost per individual in need, need-based, compared to what the alternative is. If we can't stop a situation at this level, you see with the cost starter to build new housing for someone that's homeless, this is money well-spent to keep people housed and prevent a disruption that has lasting impacts and much higher budget implications for us and society in general. So, okay. Thank you. All right, Representative Kalaki. Thank you. And Josh, this is a really interesting addition to this. So, thank you and your team for coming up with this. I like the, what I think you called it a valve to kind of be able to make sure what we're doing this right over the next couple of months. But I worry a little bit about not the rental arrears program or this new thing because that's keeping people housed but the other $8 million in the administration proposal of the loans to help people rehab, derelict housing to move people in. And I would not want that to get lost in this because that's a real effective tool for us to address this homelessness issue. So, I know we're not there yet to figure out this valve thing but I think those are separate tracks for me. This goes with rental arrears and the other is about homelessness. I appreciate that. I think the one place that it does get mixed there's been some discussions around, say we are able to rehab a home that exists and we can match up first last security deposit and three months of rental assistance to house a homeless family in one of those rehab units. And so they're working together in that way as I envision it. But if we get to November and it's clear that we're not going to rehab those other 20 homes that are in the pipeline that have money dedicated to them but no one started that work and the money hasn't been obligated. Well, we could quickly provide additional rental assistance to families in need maybe coming out of homelessness that could use another three month of rental assistance to really stabilize their situation as a bridge. Before permanent rental assistance gets there and all that. So that's how I think it does. But what I'm more worried about is this was always supposed to be in our phase two proposal which was supposed to already be discussed this week when we laid out the other one two weeks ago because the mortgage assistance really is a August, September, October need and the rental assistance is now but seeing that the money might run out that if the legislature is going to break it became apparent that we needed to throw this in the mix and have people know that there's already draft legislation and ready to go now in case we can roll it in with the package. Because also I think we leave with the housing assistance package to address Corona and there's no mention of how we're going to keep homeowners which the highest number of low income people are homeowners in Vermont. There's going to be some concern about where was our head? What were we thinking? And so I think it's important to talk about it now. All right, thank you. Appreciate it. The other thing which is making this game, if you will, this trying to understand where to put the money to is that if we make things stereotypical and say most people who are unemployed are probably the ones at risk for eviction and foreclosure, they are receiving the extra $600 a week for the time being, which if nothing else changes ends at the end of July, which means that probably the first, if they're using their payments, I mean, S333 was very clear. This is not about rental vacation. This is not about foreclosure vacation about the stuff that we did in S333. But I think that we might begin to see if this $600 a week or if unemployment is not extended in a way that allows people to continue to bridge over through the pandemic, that's when we're going to begin to see more of each of these. Right, in this language, we're keeping very clean about this was for mortgage assistance, money out. There's also a technical assistance and counseling piece that helps prevent foreclosures too. We know those programs are successful. The home ownership centers run those, others. And our thinking is that we have continuing tranches of CDBG, Corona Relief Money coming in. Then another $2 million we need to apply for in another month that we would consider dedicating some of that for the counseling assistance side and funnel it through those organizations to do that and not muddy the waters with this, with the service side. Just keep this peer cash to help people pay their mortgage so they don't go down the foreclosure path. And we would have other assistance that would come through the CDBG federal funds to help with the counseling and work that needs to go along with this. So again, Josh, I haven't looked at the language. So if it's covered in there, I apologize. But a mortgage assistance program or foreclosure prevention program is gonna be run by whom? Well, it would be run by a statewide entity that is equipped to do this, that has expertise in here. I think that the group that has chatted a few times have sort of thought that VHFA is the most appropriate entity, but it doesn't spell that out in here. I think that's one of the pieces and the proposals that we have that before this all passes if the legislature is comfortable either outright naming the groups that we think are the best administrators or providing language that suggests that this entity that meets these criteria which really only leaves a few choices, it certainly would save us time from having to do a NOFA and a competitive grant selection process. So NOFA means what? Notice of funding availability. Okay, because up here, that's a Northeast Organic Farmers Association. Yeah, yeah. An RFP is to do a contract. We backed away from the contract idea because it will take longer from our contracting with the state caps and everything that we've put in place for good reason to prevent contracts from going bad, a lot of IT projects, but looking at the length and time and effort, we would have to do a competitive grant through a NOFA or name an entity either directly or through the typical language that you see sometimes with sort of narrows who could be eligible to one party in the state to speed this thing. Okay, so we have to figure out, I mean, we have to take some, not boilerplate language, but we have to take some specific boilerplate language and make it work if we were to do that, which leads me, well, thank you for this, Josh. I think this is helpful. It's different than the rental assistance program. Obviously it would be a different management system because VHFA is as close to a bank as we get for a quasi governmental agency. I see that Richard Williams is here also and the question that came up and I didn't get an answer yet is the question of whether or not the Vermont State Housing Authority has been mentioned in the same terms that Josh just mentioned, like if we could craft something that basically says, this is all about Vermont State Housing Authority, but Richard, you sent some information that I didn't get clarification yet that said that the Vermont State Housing Authority does not receive state funds. And I'm just curious to know whether you've heard anything from your attorneys or whether or not any of the, I see, well, Josh, you're here. I think that you would probably be the person who may know if we crafted language that tried to cut this process down and said, we want to name the Vermont State Housing Authority as the holder of the rental assistance money. Would they even be able to accept that money? And Richard, did you, have you heard? I have from my own attorney and I'm just looking for the email so I could actually quote from it. Richard, before we find that, I think we have two questions here, two paths. One is their name directly as the entity and directly appropriated the funds and that's the problem I think Richard's facing. But if you say like it's designed now, it's appropriated to us and we are to find an administrator which is a statewide entity that distributes housing vouchers across the state, et cetera, et cetera. And then we grant that to them, granting to state housing authority is not a problem. We've granted projects to them before it's directly appropriating to them without going through us that I think is the potential problem. Is that the workaround we have for the state-based vouchers? With the state-based vouchers, we actually contract with agency human services through DCF and such. So we're administering a contract. They actually went out for a contract through an RFP. We responded to that. But our lawyers basically says if the legislature designates us, he does not see a problem. Basically what it says is we can't- That's not what he said. He said something a lot wordier than that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. I was gonna say they get paid by the word, but I can't, that wouldn't be fair. Now, basically, if the legislature designates Vermont State Housing Authority, he does not see a problem with that. Basically the way he said the language is we can't go and demand an appropriation from the Vermont legislature. It's basically what that language is in our statute is for. Okay. Well, so that- It looks like we can take the money directly. I still have some concerns about rulemaking. If we have to go through a rulemaking process on this, again, it's gonna delay getting that money out the door. So I don't know if there's something you can do legislatively there as well. I think that's one of the reasons Wendy Morgan's on here today too. That's why in the in Angelo put a lot of detail in that proposal is to try to get as much as they could into the legislation, therefore not necessarily needing to go through a rulemaking process or emergency rulemaking process. Okay. It's 305, we didn't start till 130. Are people, is the committee okay to be online for another 25 minutes? Okay. And Ron, is that okay with you? Or do you need to be any place else, Ron? Okay. Thank you. All right. Well, that's off the checklist or that's just something to check more on from. I need to reread the VLA, VLA proposal a little bit more closely, but that's good to hear that there's two different options both viable. I mean, I think I'm more used to hearing the solution that commissioner Hanford has proposed just cause that's the way our state government works, but I'll be interested in investigating what Richard just mentioned to us. Can I also make one more comment? Please do. Yeah. I also think I might have left represented Kalaki. I think I testified on Tuesday. I think you asked me the question representative I supported the Vermont legal aid and the apartment owners proposal. And I may have not, I may have left it in your impression that I didn't. And that was not my intent. What basically I was trying to leave the door open and say, we're going to respond to whatever is available. And if, you know, we have worked closely with legal aid and the apartment owners things on the proposal, we feel pretty comfortable with the way it's laid out. But if the, you know, if the ACCD came out with an RP or a NOFA or whatever, would still be, we would apply for that and would probably be presenting pretty similar proposal as to what use have seen or maybe haven't seen illegal aid proposals in the apartment owners thing. So hopefully I didn't confuse the issue when I testified. So in the remaining time, I want to cover two more things in commissioner Hanford. I want to, well, actually, I want to give you a chance to breathe for a little bit and then ask the committee, just in general, we've talked a lot and I've made mention to keep it going, the conversation around each 739, which is the rental registry, the idea that the only immediate appropriation in the rental registry bill is to the Department of Housing and Community Development to work with the agency of digital services to develop the database based on the tax information that's publicly available, whether it's part of the new rental rebate system or the old tax situation. And then because the way that the bill was constructed was that there would be a fee structure that would be involved with it, but that would not go into effect until another date's certain. And in the case of the bill, it was January 1 of 2021, if the bill passed this year. And so I just want to put it out to the committee. You know, we've had a lot of conversation on it. We've heard a lot of testimony from different people that said that the registry would have been helpful. It would not have been something that would have eradicated or made easier in some respects, the placement of homeless individuals, but it may have helped people. And I think we've heard from different folks about that. And I just want to kind of put that on the table as kind of a checklist. Is this something that we want to include in tier one? It's right now, it's an estimated $600,000 based on the information that we received from. Well, Wendy, you're saying four, but there's also another 200,000 in there from other resources that I'm just saying 600 because it's, because those resources may not be directly available at this time, but it was, and there was also once upon a time, there was another million, just under a million dollars to stand up the Department of Public Safety. I hesitate to recommend that at this time, but I'm just curious, do we want to continue the conversation of including the rental registry as part of this conversation that it would be done in order to help expatriate everything that we've been talking about? And I think we can make the argument that it's COVID related. Representative Zot, we've got that voice thing going on again. Do you want to text a question on the chat box? Okay, Representative Zot is just saying that he does not support including it. I've not been persuaded by the testimony. Representative Hango. Rental registry, I am not a fan. I do not really see the connection between the COVID crisis and a rental registry, and I'm not anxious to spend extra money on computer systems or that type of paperwork gathering at this point in time. I believe we need to help people with real needs, such as rental assistance in the form of arerages and mortgage foreclosure preventions, things like that. I really am not interested in spending money on administrative functions at this point in time. Thank you. Representative Kalanke. Yesterday when we were talking, I'd like what Representative Hango said about, let's make a list of all the things we've been discussing. And I think that we made a lot of progress today. So thank you, Chair, for organizing this. And I would keep it on the list, and I might say that it may be a lower priority when we see what resources we have. But until we really have that list of everything that we've been discussing and what's left with the kind of allocations we want to move forward with. So I would include it for now. I'd probably be a lower priority for me, depending on the needs, but I think it's a good way to get the holistic list together on Tuesday, I guess, when we next meet on this to see what other issues we want to address or that we haven't addressed yet. So that's where I am. All right, any further comments on 739 right now? All right, seeing none. Oh, Representative Howard, you can mute. Unmute. Sorry about that. I agree, I don't think it should be a top priority, but I think that it's an opportunity now to have a list of people who are renting for a future. It seems to be that the state is always like behind. I mean, obviously with the unemployment insurance issue, we had a 30 year old computer system. So I agree it's important to take care of the absolute needs first, but I think it also is important to consider the registry. Thank you. And just a reminder that the registry is not just for the sake of having the list, it is also the basis for having the rental housing safety portion of age 739. And considering that we're talking about giving money to people or having people take a risk in taking departments offline that are currently unsafe, having a rental housing safety function in the state, it might be the right time to do that. Representative Gonzalez. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, that's really ties into what I was thinking about in terms of we keep talking about this money for landlords to rehab buildings that are not really safe. I think it's a generally good idea and I really also worry about public funds going to private landlords, particularly when there's just such a small amount of years to keep it at affordability. And so I have some real concerns about that and also see that we're in a crisis time and so we're looking at all of the options. And so in that, I really think about the rental registry as investing in the properties overall and investing in the renters and by having the access of knowledge of where folks are that we will have more, it'll be easier for us to identify these potential landlords who could in the future also increase their safety of their properties and increase and moving their properties back online. So I think it's really important that we look at housing safety as we're looking at housing for public health safety and having this bill and that connection, I just, I think it's very valuable. I also think that we need to look at all of our priorities as other representatives have said so that we can make it a puzzle as it always is. And I think looking at the list is important and that to me, this seems very tight in as we're looking at rental housing and moving people into safe housing for all the reasons that we need to do that. Thank you. All right. Commissioner Hanford, back to you. The Enhanced VHIP Program. We received some guidance from David Hall or through the Treasury FAQs, which are making it a differently interesting question. And Wendy, I'm sorry, Josh, before I go further, Wendy, I hear see your name up. Are you here on VHIP or on? I'm on anything, so why don't you put me after? You're done with Josh. On anything? Well, no, I have a couple of comments and a couple of things. Okay. All right, Josh, so I guess, Josh, I just want you to be able to address the fact that some of the readings of the Treasury guidance, which of course still fall somewhat short of regulations and laws, say that the, as applied to the VHIP Program, it puts an imbalance between what's a forgivable loan and what's a grant. And the notion being that a forgivable loan, the concept of a forgivable loan is to say, here's this money we're lending it to you at 0% or 1% or whatever that is. And if you reach these benchmarks, it will become a grant. And what the Treasury is saying is that, well, the loans, if they're made in 2020, have to be paid back in 2020, or they have to be paid back to the Feds, back to the Treasury. And I'm just curious to know what, if there's been any kind of conversation in the administration about this kind of, this dilemma of what you're gonna call, what we would call this money. Because speaking to representative Gonzalez's thing, if it's a grant with a small 10% match to any landlord, private or public, what does that do in terms of our leverage in making sure that these units are used for what they're intended? Right, so we've talked about switching this program to entirely grant because of the issues with not really sure about loans, if we can pull this off across the whole spectrum, business assistance, whatnot, there's a lot of good reasons to use loans. They test for viability and they hold accountability. But there's been concerns about our ability to do that. And I think that you could structure this rehousing program to entirely with grants where you up the grant amount for commitments on homeless, you know, those that are rehousing homeless and they're connected with the service provider and MLU rental assistance matched up and those that are grants with a commitment on affordability, keeping the rents affordable for a period of time. And you can give a grant but you can still take, you know, some sort of paper on that property, some sort of, you know, we do it with CDBG grants all the time that there's a, you know, essentially the municipality whoever's running it, you know, some sort of lean on the property till those commitments are met. So I think that that can be worked out. Okay, because I, you know, this is a hard thing to just say, here's more candy. Yeah, I mean, I would push back on that if 19,000 of those units were in decent shape, we would have places to house people today and we wouldn't need to spend as much money to recreate and that this problem is just gonna get worse. You know, we've lost as much housing each year as we're building with our $80 million investments each year. That's gonna, that's predicted to continue for the next five years straight. So we're not getting ahead, we're falling behind and a small investment in helping the 85% of rental properties that are privately owned that serve many of low income people is slipping us by. And I think we're missing a real chance to make a difference. That's, I've been in doing this for 15 years. I don't just, I don't just, no, I don't disagree. I just think that the idea that the idea is that, I mean, here's one though, I'm with the grant issue. I mean, housing this population, this money is being used specifically as David Hall pointed out, it's gonna be used for a very limited population of people and they're very difficult to house. And we've heard from landlords for the, for as long as I've been in the building, private landlords in particular, that if I, yes, it would be nice to have a mass release program. Yes, it would be nice to have a risk pool. Cause I mean, for instance, and this goes into like, well, what do we call services? You know, or what do we call capital reserves? This conversation that we've had about the VHTB proposals is saying, you know, does a private landlord want to rent to someone who may have a bad day and do an incredible amount of damage, physical damage to their property? It takes a special landlord to be able to persevere with that. And part of the having a mass release program, the way that Washington County Mental Health, for instance, is saying that we'll pay for those damages. But that's having a reserve fund. So I'm just curious, you know, I wonder if, and I'm afraid the answer will probably be no, but saying, well, if you get a grant, here's also some extra money to put aside or here's access to a risk pool program that might make it easier for a private landlord to fulfill that obligation. You know, it's, you know, try to help them out is, it's an interesting balance. It's an interesting thing to try to figure out. I mean, we've been talking about something like that for a few years that if we had some sort of loss reserve that landlords that could access that had damage, they would do this again. If they could recoup damages, it's just, it doesn't exist in a large way. And that, you know, I would, you know, argue that, you know, look at the pathways proposal, look at the groups, they are rehousing homeless folks now in private properties every day. I mean, this is how you find units because the, you know, affordable units, there's hardly any vacancy. So this is what's left in order to house our most vulnerable in most cases. And it's substandard and it's not getting better and we're not spending any money to address it. So I think we just keep getting worse and worse. And, you know, I know that, you know, there's some hesitancy about giving a grant to a private owner, but, you know, we're all getting mortgage, you know, we're all getting support in some way for housing across the board. And that, you know, the reduced rents commitment, the risk here and the increase in these property values, you know, for community members is, I think it's worth that limited funding when you look at what the alternatives are and what they cost and that, you know, even with the proposals you've talked about earlier, you know, with, you know, changing some motels, doing some rehab, helping to house folks, 150 to 200, you know, with VHCB, it leaves a lot more room for more need. And those costs, you know, being what they are, there's not enough money left in this budget to do much more than that. And so, you know, this is pretty efficient. It's, and it hasn't been done in 25, 30 years. You know, there used to be programs like this 30 years ago where private properties were rehabbed with federal funds, grants were forgiven, Richard Williams ran them, Earhart ran them. This was pretty standard 25, 30 years ago. And, you know, I think it's, there's time and there's some room for some of this assistance if we don't want to keep going backwards on our housing stock. We can't build our way new out of our affordable housing crisis. Thank you. No, and thank you. That's very, that's an eloquent way of putting in I appreciate the reminder, especially that, that programs did have some success 30 years ago. I mean, there were some issues too, but there was some success in those programs and that's important to, it's important to appreciate. I am going to pass the microphone to Wendy, again, being sensitive to the time on a Friday afternoon. Go ahead, Wendy. So am I, can you hear me? Yes. Great, okay, thank you. I just wanted to respond to a couple of different things that were talked about. One is whether you can name VSHA and I was glad that Richard was able to talk to his attorney before coming here today. I hope you will name both VSHA and if you go with the foreclosure, VHFA because I think it'll just speed up the process in both of these arenas, particularly in the rent arrears, we really need some money and frankly assurance. It'll have a calming effect just you next Wednesday saying this is a priority for us. We do have some draft language for David if you want us to give it to him that would take his bill and take our proposal and sort of mesh it in a way that we think gives enough guidance to VSHA that they would not need to do rulemaking in order to implement the program. I want to say on the foreclosure front that I was sort of, there are a lot of people that are in forbearance right now and some of them will stay in it for many years. I was glad to hear about the counseling because that's money that's not that Josh talked about. Richard talked about Josh talked about but that's money that doesn't have to be spent by 1230 and that will help the people whose forbearance dates come up after the first of the year. So that is great for them. But in the meantime, even though there are forbearance requirements, particularly at the national level, there are national services who are giving people misinformation about how long they can get a forbearance. And so it's really important that we have some resources in place for people to get the information they need to challenge the services who are saying they owe the money now even though in fact under federal law they cannot be doing that. We heard from one counseling at Opportunities Bank yesterday who said that sometimes it takes two or three months to convince the servicer that they cannot proceed the way they're proceeding and it's just incredibly time consuming. And as far as the- Wendy, before you go too far, just a clarification of mortgage servicer, are those the people that if I take a loan out from, you know, my local Vermont bank and they sell the mortgage? Is that who we're talking about? So they're selling the mortgage to a servicer? Yes. So it's that one step removed from the people I originally worked with. I just want to make that clear to people- Right. For myself actually, but- Right, and I think that the local banks here are working very well with their clients or the people that they've lent money to. And so that's not really the issue. The issue is the people who are getting hammered by the national ones who actually because it's a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan or whatever, they are not allowed to proceed but they are telling people they're going to proceed. And so they're not giving them the forbearance rights that they have a right to. And as far as the eight million to local landlords, I mean, one thought I had Josh talked about looking at where are we spending all of this money by, you know, maybe in September and is it the right balance between foreclosure and lender, I mean, private landlords? I think, you know, just having a requirement that a private landlord have a letter of intent to apply for that eight million very early on would help. And having to have a specific plan again would help because frankly, we don't know if there's gonna be two million requested or 10 million requested under that grant. We do have concerns that whatever amount of money goes out of that eight million pot identified by the governor will not maintain its affordability or not maintain it's used to low income and homeless people. So that is an area of concern for us. That was pretty much what I wanted to say. Okay. Oh, it's 330. It is, it is 330. So I think from a brain being full day, I think I'm gonna leave it there. We have a lot of thinking to do. I want us homework is gonna be looking at in particular looking at the VLA times two proposal that Wendy's talking about with the concerns that she just mentioned. It's looking at Josh's document from today on the foreclosure. Concepts include, do we ask David to create language that is, and I think I need to send David an email because he wasn't able to get us that language today. But I think we agree that the $23 million fast track is the way to go as soon as we get the language, as soon as I see the language, I'll share it. But again, we have the opportunity to see that when it comes back next week. And then do we, how do we create the language that make the decision? Do we wanna craft language that says this unnamed agency but the agency that only fits this criteria is gonna be the agency that covers the foreclosures or the mortgage or the rental. So those are things to think about for Tuesday. It's a lot and I think we're gonna get pretty crispy by the time 1030 rolls around or so on Wednesday. So just be prepared to have our tempers be short and our patients be frayed and let's just do good work. So do some homework this weekend. John, you have a comment before we go. Yes, I'm new to all of this for requests for proposals and I wonder if Josh could send us the language the state uses that narrows the scope of organizations that might be applicable for us just to see that. And if that's the way to go or if it is that we designate the two agencies we've been discussing. I just don't know what, you know, I think we all wanna be efficient and accomplish exactly what the administration wants to do in this. But so I don't really know what the options are without seeing how this state would narrow it first. So we could send some language. You know, I've seen it all the time in legislation where you say, you know, this redevelopment project in this Northeast Kingdom town that has this and it can only be talking about Newport but you never say the city of Newport. And we can easily craft some and include it in the length, provide it to you and David to look at if you wanna use it as an alternative to actually naming the group. I know that on the better places, the community sort of investment, five million that's in the governor's corona relief task is doing just that for an administrator of the program that speaks to a statewide charitable organization. And when you drill down to it, there's only one that would be eligible but it doesn't outright name them. Well, that would be helpful for us just to see, Josh, I think is that simple. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Anything do you wanna leave me with before we go? Thank you so much. Do you want to go over the schedule for next week just to give them the dates and times? Oh, yeah. Sure. Do you have them in front of you or do you need to find them out? I have it. You're actually gonna see each other every day next week except for Monday. No, I have it. I can read it off. Yeah, please do. Just a moment. Just a second. Get back to that page. Okay. It's coming. I'm just calling it up. Do you wanna take us off the air? Sure. At the same time. I can do that. And for the witnesses who are here, thank you very much for being present.