 Okay I think we can get started now so thank you for coming this is a great turnout I'm Beth Burgess I'm with Vermont 211 which is an information and referral service and we actually have connections with homelessness through the many services we list on our database we also have a contract with H.S. to provide after hours and weekend intake for people in the general assistance emergency homelessness program and right here is Jamie Cotton we were both grad students I still am at the time the research was done she at UVM. I'm a teacher so I'm still in the teaching teaching role I think I taught your children actually at PodChem. Did your kids go to PodChem? No. So yeah I'm happy to show this presentation. So this was conducted through the auspices of the Washington County continuum of homelessness which is a coalition of direct services organizations faith communities and others in government and elsewhere dealing directly with people experiencing homelessness and it was funded by the Montpelier homelessness task force through the city of Montpelier's appropriation of money for $100 gift cards that were offered to people who were homeless as an incentive to participate I know I'm short so you can't probably see me but as incentive to participate in interviews and Good Samaritan Haven participated in providing some staff to help with interviews so to begin with we wanted to survey a range of people as you can see this bullet list to figure out what the roots of homelessness are in our communities now we know structural issues are really the main cause of homelessness in general poverty lack of housing track of transportation lack of jobs for people with low skills and we wanted to learn some stories about how people were affected by their homelessness how they came to be in that situation and what they were dealing with along the way so we bet with a couple of researchers one who was at Dartmouth who produced a report on families experiencing homelessness in excuse me in Eastern Vermont a few years ago on what their issues were and the social exclusion they experienced so as you can see from the bullet points here we had an interview script we worked on tirelessly and actually modified after a few interviews in the beginning and wanted to cover the waterfront in the sense find out what the cause was for that individual we talked to find out what kind of struggles they were experiencing their job situation transportation whether they had any benefits kind of an all-round picture and in March and February we conducted the interview so it was winter and people were feeling the full thrust of the cold weather especially people who were living in the shelter who would have to leave the shelter during the day there are at this time 460 people it is estimated who are homeless in Washington County that includes this is as of late October 86 people living without shelter that's in cars and outbuildings on the streets in tents various situations 60 people living in the shelters and 314 living temporarily in motel housing Vermont just to give some context has the second lowest vacancy rate in the country Connecticut is first so even if you have a section 8 housing voucher or you have some rental assistance to get housing there just isn't much and many people don't always find luck with landlords in the area and often housing assistance only gets you so far as you can see the ages of the people we interviewed range from the very young to 60 and not everyone told us their age so there may have been older folks we had people we did phone interviews we first were going to do zoom or teams interviews but discovered that some people just didn't have the technology to do it or teams and zoom have their own problems and we anticipated and had some difficulties so we ended up doing phone interviews for the most part so this is what we found about the range of the length of time people were homeless I was curious about the median age some ages we guessed but most people these were the age ranges there's probably not a lot of statistical difference when you're looking at this but you can see that 38 41 for people who were homeless for two years or less and then getting up to the median age of 51 for people who have been homeless 10 plus years as you can see the greatest percent of the people we interviewed almost 50 percent had been homeless for two years or less the numbers don't add up completely to 100% because not all participants responded and so we had some variation in the numbers I think gamey's okay sorry we divided and conquered the really I got confused and I should back up a little bit we were at two different universities and had two completely different projects that we were working on that we came together for this and I really helped out on there the research end of the interviewing and Beth amazingly put a huge research paper together and also this presentation so she did an amazing amount of work on this and just due to the requirements of the grants grad school requirements yes so I'm not intimately familiar with the data on this page okay that's fine part of the research involves some academic research generally nationwide and North America wide on rural homelessness so it's often described as invisible or hidden because in the urban areas where most of the studies have been done you can see people living on the streets you can see people who are obviously homeless and rural areas people live in outbuildings they're doubled up they're living in old homes they may have housing but it could be falling apart they could be in an outbuilding one person where I work we used to do tally up and input data on the point in time count which is the once a year count every state does to measure the number of people who are homeless on a given night and there was a family that had lived in a chicken house during the winter so some research has found that there's a growing number of families and Vermont has seen an increase in the number of families who are homeless younger people female headed households this may not be true in Vermont we're not sure what we did was we ended up with 73 people as I said there's 460 people estimated to be homeless in Washington County so that's a small group of them and we don't know if they are necessarily representative of all homeless people in the area but we wanted to get a sense the causes and this is more typical in rural areas are often economics having lost a job and it could have been to COVID having lost other sources of funding having lost housing but mental health problems and substance use disorders are more common definitely for people experiencing homelessness as well as in rural areas there's the lack of transportation lower housing vacancy rates as I mentioned and not as many job opportunities we also found from the research that small towns more often tend to be more conservative more kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of thinking not realizing that a major structural cause the poverty the various things I mentioned can be more to blame for being homeless so there may be problems with people blaming the victim for their homelessness okay so we found from the people that we interviewed about a third of them said that they lost their housing due to economic situations 18% due to lack of money and 13% due to losing their job I do find it interesting that the slide that she had but the statistics on it that so many people had more homeless for less than two years which that's the time of the pandemic so we'll get into that that was directly the cause for certainly a lot of people I talked to who were no longer allowed to just live in other people's homes a fifth of interviewees became homeless as a result of divorce or breakup which is another form of economic hardship these were some quotes directly from the people that we interviewed one person lost their job as a private nurse because of COVID then got custody of her grandson and this was another recurrent theme that we came across of grandparents who were caretakers of their grandchildren who then couldn't work in the lack of childcare in Vermont so all these things are interconnected and another person who got divorced and then bounced around all over the place here is the the table divorce being the number one the highest percentage economic hardships you'll notice that the total is more than 100% because people could put multiple reasons down substance use lost jobs physical health issues mental health moving domestic violence and justice system and evicted fiction 18% of interviewees linked their loss secured housing to substance use not everybody admitted that in the phone interviews you know interestingly there was even a discrepancy in the amount of information that each of us would get from from the people that we interviewed in 12.7% lost housing due to being the injuries not sure how well people can read these from from the back is it easy to read no okay I'll sum up the quotes from people so during the pandemic as a brand new nurse I already started to overwork and burnout exhausted this led me to doing substances so I could make it through the day so eventually in early 2021 I got caught I had diverted drugs from patients medication stored what I could and got a charge of petty larceny and was fired and lost my LNA license I admitted to all of this learned a lot moved in with my mother then my mother and her husband moved I was pregnant so I didn't know what to do is the first snip at the second one is before I hurt my leg I worked every day paid my bills and rent then going down the tubes lost my apartment been downhill ever since mental health was the cause of homelessness for another 12.7% of the people we interviewed and 12.7% of the homeless was due to moving without a place to stay 10% fled their homes as a result of domestic violence bouncing around this is the quote since my dad hung himself I found him at age 17 dropped out of high school during sophomore year I have PTSD and generalized anxiety disorder I was addicted to heroin now it's a box in program most recently homeless for five to six years the bottom one says I got out of an abusive relationship I left where I was because if I didn't I may have been killed I'm living out of my car but the cars in the shop so I'm bouncing around right now I was staying in a camper but it got too cold I did do this I think we had a mix up on who did yeah so the struggles involved with homelessness so although substance use and mental health issues were not the predominant causes of lost housing those problems rose to the top of struggles they had experienced over 33% of interviewees faced mental health concerns such as PTSD anxiety depression and trauma I'm guessing it's probably higher than that but it again it would not everybody shared this level of detail with us 27% have substance use disorder or a recovering from it and about 25% talked about the everyday challenges of being without housing such as cold weather and privacy spending hours looking for affordable apartments and trying to keep up hope when everything seems to be going wrong growing the wrong way makes it hard to get out of homelessness the quote here back in 2010 was the first time I was homeless had back rent due to my mother my mother evicted me even though I have two kids tight spot I was addicted to pain medication they were supplied by my family got the drugs for my mom after which she called DCF and told them I was an unfit mom the second one says I never realized how much food is nice to have what it's like to be hungry it's not something you think about when you when you have a house the third one says cold weather is a major thing right now there are a lot of people who really look down on the homeless being physically disabled and not having a home is very tiring being in pain daily and having to carry a backpack is hard and the last one says once you are in in the community of being homeless it's very difficult to get out of it all the factors that make you homeless make it hard you get stuck in the system so the supports just as much as the struggles it's important to see what the supports were for folks experiencing homelessness there are different research findings about supports in the community especially in small towns so the US interagency council on homelessness found that there were a lot of strong family bonds and important supports found through small communities in the rural area and through family and we did find that over a third of people turned to a family member for help which was somewhat surprising because this isn't always the case a quarter asked a friend 15.4% went to a case manager 10.8% consulted capstone currently are in the past 9.2% asked a partner for help another 9.2% talked to homeless shelter staff and 8% called their therapist so in small towns it can go either way everyone knows your business in a small town especially if you grew up there or you've been living there for a while and it's hard to get beyond that there can be stigma in a small town as I mentioned people expected to pull yourself up by your bootstraps a lot of the time and so blame can be turned against the person who's experiencing homelessness the quote here in relation to that is the first time I was homeless I didn't want to speak to another homeless person again thought I was better than them and someone told me you and your husband were talking about me and I felt so bad and this woman speaking said I was mortified I'm so sorry she said just mortified just horrible that I did that she and I are now good friends and in terms of family is a strong support system one person said my family is up here trying to be supportive they're mostly on section 8 housing so I don't want to be a third wheel my family cares about me it's embarrassing yeah mom I'm still homeless and then another person had the opposite situation my family is not a very good support system except my siblings get all the support they need when I was going through a period of time 20 years ago I was abusing drugs I got well I'm still taking meds for it but they'd rather run me into the ground than help so getting back again to the assumptions and beliefs of small communities the way people get help sometimes is influenced by these beliefs and they can be seen as responsible for their homelessness even when there are structural reasons and reasons not having to do with their own actions that cause them to be that way they can perpetuate victim blaming for the circumstances so of course we ask people what kind of housing are you're looking for what would be best for you and as you can imagine no big surprise an apartment some people were more specific most people said an apartment but some people said a studio apartment that was 22.5 percent a what one bedroom apartment 15.5 percent a two bedroom apartment that was 14 percent anything 14 percent house was about 10 percent a log cabin about 10 percent a tiny house 8.5 percent and a room they wanted to have a room 5.6 percent so the quotes are ideal housing where I could have my daughter with me where I'm living now I can't have her here if I had a place with her it would be the happy center of my world if I had an apartment I would get custody they took her from my ex I can prove I'm the father and meet other criteria I'd like a one bedroom apartment with a living room she would have the bedroom and I'd sleep on the couch in the living room another person said a loft with a workspace and a small sleep space like a studio kind of thing I can envision it in my head where it doesn't matter and then another person so accustomed to being in a shelter said I'm used to having chaos kind of odd after I got the apartment I didn't sleep in the bedroom for a month I slept on the couch one bedroom basement very small so used to being in a shelter and sharing space wasn't comfortable in a bedroom so as I mentioned before our research wasn't a random sample which they would call a scientific research it was people found out about this through order of mouth through postings in the motels through agencies through case managers and it would have been great to interview many more people but so while we can't generalize our findings to everyone who's experiencing homelessness in the Washington County area we can get a picture of the causes the needs and the barriers for many in the situation structural and individual issues interact and creating an exacerbating homelessness respectively resulting in a need for targeted services and housing what would work for a 24 year old mother without transportation who needs to get her GED subsidized child care and be close to job training and work would not necessarily work for a 48 year old man with a physical disability who's in recovery and has ongoing medical needs so basically what this boils down to as I mentioned that the numbers have been growing in this area we know that a lot of people are outside still we have tiny vacancy rate of 2.4% housing prices are going up the rental assistance program is being turned off essentially emergency housing is an emergency we are an emergency now this is something that needs action and we need to explore ways to enhance existing supports increase harm reduction measures and broaden housing options and these are just some samples of next steps yes so researchers and policy makers have suggested a range of recommendations to address the problems associated with homelessness including prevention identification of unstably house people to get services provision of support services and expansion of infrastructure cocs can involve nontraditional partners for outreach to help identify people experiencing homelessness these could include referrals from postal workers hospital discharge providers gas station convenience stores law enforcement employment agencies and thrift stores expand shared housing allow I allow clients to add their names to three coordinated entry lists and provide funding to help the informal helpers family friends that take folks into offsets offset housing costs and other expenses at least one person I spoke with really articulated that if she were allowed to find housing with the amount of money that was being spent on her monthly hotel allowance I mean it said it was a huge amount of money that would have more than covered a rental fee but they aren't allowed to work that way and also as you know that that last one really stands out to me is to help these people who are you know to add someone to into their household would be a struggle but this would help offset that just a little bit especially in our where there's there's just isn't that housing for people to even find other more long-term solutions is to increase funding for permanent supportive housing you know so many people talked you know like they would could just use a tiny house even if it was on someone's farm where they could help work on the farm you know maybe I'll add in their creative housing options develop single room occupancy units develop medical housing for people experiencing homelessness so that these those with medical needs are not discharged from the hospital to the streets and also I'm not sure we touched on it as much as we should have but transportation is such a huge issue for the people who are homeless in Washington County and so it is just one of those things that compounds the gravity of the situation for people who have medical needs and to get to their appointments so somehow creating housing that is specifically set up for people close to Central Vermont Medical Center in particular a couple quotes on this page are I think they should have treatment options for people who are homeless might be impossible to get into rehab but if they know there's an option there might be less deaths going on the second one says after two years of no solid housing options why not let people spend motel money on housing they find it's a diverse population with diverse needs and one thing that covid did teach us was that it's actually possible to find housing for almost everybody whether that's the ideal housing probably not but it was possible to get a roof over almost everybody's heads that we could find anyway we don't know how many people were living in the woods during or in cars during this this time that we were interviewing or during covid but it does seem like it opened the door for a lot of people to get housing that didn't previously have housing now we're going to open it up to questions I also want to introduce two folks who can address some questions about shelter and support services for people with mental health issues and people experiencing homelessness so Ken Russell who's with another way in more pillion and Rick de Angelis who is the co-executive director of Good Samaritan Haven which has several shelters and you want to come up here sorry fellow in the reddish shirt me well first thank you very much it was great presentation so I noticed my pillion homeless task force supported in yeah I'm wondering has this material been presented to the Montpelier Council and is Montpelier actually doing any of the actions that you're proposing? Yes. The Montpelier homelessness task force through the city council has hired a consultant team to come up with actions to follow up on this report and Ken can forward with that. Yeah so we have so taxpayers here currently allocated money for this project and there's also money as a follow-up who like do a gaps analysis and they hire two excellent consultants who are very actively looking and like looking both short-term and long-term that's always been a struggle because there's like such a big problem and then people struggling like right now so one of the first things was hired were street outreach workers Rick's shop is hired and some of these folks have been working outdoors for years it's a really great network of people you know just immediate needs like issuing sleeping bags and tents there is this was nice because it's like as you can see there's sort of like the stories on one side and the data on the other so there's like a head and heart thing because like the emotional depth of this is huge and really being present to what folks are going through there's also really need some like high-minded structural political financial you know legal responses real estate I mean what's really needed are places for people to go so right now our organization is looking at you know running over a closed shelter Christ Church which is just for a limited number of people we've been active in motels and Rick's group has you know there's all sorts of stuff happening all over the place and it's frustrating because the need I mean people are people are outside and people freeze to death people die and nobody hears about it and so I don't know I'm feeling dumb all of a sudden I got to think that would be government buildings we have you know at nighttime I know it's more complicated than this but couldn't we open up already facilities that we own that are heated so people aren't at night and I'm sure there's red tape and issues around that but why does our happen we just come through a simple open the doors and well liability is part of it as you sort of indicate you know I mean in another way we have folks I mean we try to be open to folks but I'm the director there I still have to consider liability legal cut you know please go ahead just to debate so we as a city would not have liability if someone died on the street but we would if something happened yeah yeah no I appreciate it it's like do we have the willpower right and the smarts to make this happen you think about it there in earthquake we'd be setting up tents like they might have the yalta thing they set up tents for us people you know and it's like do we have political will to cite what needs to happen and do we have the heart is our hearts big enough are we willing to open up our homes and and it's hot it's you know you know it's that's that's the question you know may I take a stab at that question sure this maybe we'll sound a little Paulina but I actually think the state of Vermont and the city of Montpelier have done a lot a lot of resources have been spent on this problem the amount of monies spent a house of people in hotels is staggering it's unbelievable and the city of Montpelier has done a lot so it's not that things aren't being done and that people aren't being housed it's we need to do this in a thoughtful careful way in a productive way so that we're getting something at the end of the day where we're going beyond shelter and finding some solutions the red mask yeah that's you um I was just wondering if people were asked if they have been living in Vermont for a lifetime this part of your question here my question is are people coming from outside or is it a local population it's a mix there were some people who would come here from outside but many were returning to Vermont from having elsewhere mostly it's me is I'm glad you asked that question because there were a couple people who did move here like her daughter I remember lived in North Carolina and it made me feel horrible actually interviewing her so like the only thing I can think of was you should go there like it's warm there and there's probably more housing in your your family there and that I was like our state it felt unwelcome a welcoming to but yeah there's just a shortage of housing I was like I don't know how you're ever gonna I mean I didn't say all this I don't know how you're going to find housing there's so little housing here and these are just people I was like this could be like my mom and like the blink of an eye with one one negative thing happening and just it's a hard place to live I want to take a stab with that too good Samaritan hip and has been offering shelter for 35 years our experience is far and away most people are from central Vermont I think it's a myth that people are coming to Vermont for easy services and so forth we have people in our shelter right now that went to high school in Montpelier I've lived here I mean it's it's really I think that's the way to think about it these are our neighbors like anyone that moved here just it was like some circumstance would have brought them here a job that they don't have or sometimes people move because their kids moved here and then something or a relationship that turns to our and they don't have a place to live yeah and so what if they had come from somewhere else we're I mean part of part of how we justify this is otherizing people and like they deserve it they're from somewhere else okay thank you again for putting this on I have a question as far as the homelessness task force and the city council here in Montpelier to what extent have the single occupancy units been discussed is the funding there is that a realistic option are there roadblocks as a non-starter I mean there is a housing committee as a part of that we have a homelessness committee so we're not the ones focusing on the provision of housing it's one of the things being considered by the consultants who are looking into what actions to take in the future it's been discussed a lot by the continuum care the coalition of the direction it all depends on developing the space you know everything takes time with building up housing but it's a good suggestion it definitely is being discussed given the amount of money I've seen in the paper it's been spent why hasn't something allocated to long-range housing problems that was all seen temporary a lot a lot has been spent on affordable housing in Vermont it's not it's not insignificant and in fact there are several projects in the works right now in central Vermont some of which there's at least one that's kind of focused on very small units in not SRO but small apartments it takes time to develop affordable housing you know real estate is a complicated lengthy process you have to assemble a lot of money so again I think our state has done a lot but it just we have an unprecedented set of circumstances right now and that's what's really challenging us I guess I think in the paper some large buildings and apartment buildings for sale is there money to buy those and start using those or there is money but you have to know how to do that too I mean there's only a couple of organizations in central Vermont that develop affordable housing and not everybody can do it it's not a walk in the park and and that Down Street for example is doing a lot but they've got a pipeline that's it's already full and so it just did so there's a lot of things that have to come together affordable housing development only a certain percent is dedicated to people experiencing homelessness so let's say you have 20 new units what would be about three would be for people experiencing homelessness so you have to look at it that way also it's incremental unfortunately in terms of building more I'm talking about these houses that sell for a hundred thousand dollars or less there's a lot of rooms in them that may need work too and I don't know almost people want to do the work and not that another program but is there money to someone who our organization to purchase that type and start a shelter there I don't know the mechanism that is being discussed or getting people into housing well we've talked about a lot of things even purchasing some other hotels and converting them to housing it yeah a lot of stuff is being talked about but as I said I think it's a fairly long timeline and a group like ours for example we don't really have the capacity or the expertise to be developing a project like you mentioned it has to be an organization that really knows how to do it so we're talking a lot about the physical aspect of this the housing itself and what I understand too is you can be housing first but there's a lot of wraparound services that are really important to support people coming on homeless and so I'm wondering do you feel we have the infrastructure in place to do that side of the equation so here there's money they're from the pipeline but do we have the services to support these posts if something we're aiming for it's the ideal and it's definitely something that people need permanent supportive housing was one of the ones on the list all kinds of services are important at Rick's welcome center at the former hotel different providers can come there for kind of one-stop shopping for people and it's definitely goal it's just there isn't always the money for it it's something that constantly is definitely the goal and people struggle with attaining a lot of times because of transportation and it's going and in some cases lack of education and really how to navigate the system and not really knowing exactly what to do like at the hotel and there wasn't a lot of privacy to have these type of conversations so some people suggested like it'd be so great if there was one place where we could go to sort of find out all this information instead of what Barry and then also more failure and you know it just comes down to transportation one thing I see is there's these big complex system where we need good bureaucrats to deliver complex nuance deliverables but I like the grassroots like this is our community and what we do right here also leveraging these systems you know barking up those trees and we're well situated in the state capital but you know like think of this as a community and we have a bunch of people here at no place to stay and so how about a tent in your backyard I mean we've been tremendous generosity thoughtfulness people bringing food all the time and tents and sleeping bags and you know but you know but under our system under our capitalist system we've run out of places for people to live and it can't people can't afford this is structural issue so do we have the courage do we have the vision to figure out ourselves how to really be an inclusive community and also I should mention that at the motels where people are staying good Sam and other providers go there and offer services right with the folks who are staying there so coming to them I really like what you said you know of course we have to confront this problem with political strategies and investments and so forth but I think at the same time we need to do it on a one-to-one person basis you know it's just being aware that a person is alone and that they're suffering I mean that's a lot and and because otherwise I think the problem just gets overwhelming and you don't want to do about it so so I really like what you said no and I see it another way you talk to somebody and you just are be emotionally present and non-judgmental and it goes a long way and all of a sudden that person that can be viewed as like monstrous to somebody else like this other that's scary like oh it's just another part another person who really appreciates being listened to and taken taken seriously and you can see you know this what fantastic report like a divorce you know domestic abuse like just just the things that kick people out these are very real human problems and we're human beings so you know so so it's a little bit like we're not gonna have the perfect bureaucracies we're not gonna have the perfect system the white night coming in you know we have to really so would you define our current problem as an emergency and if you if you do define it that way what constitutes an emergency I called the director of Vermont emergency management like do you have a preparation that's going on oh we're not funded for that you know we're fine and I worked in San Francisco after the 89 earthquake I worked with the Red Cross and like hanging out fast like oh yeah so I thought that was an emergency but the fact that structural economics or capitalism leaves people on the streets not an emergency I mean just say something slightly provocative you know so it's an emergency and it is mercy every year and we tolerate it so there are maybe 80 people living outside in Montpelier right now maybe maybe 75 and then the motel program is is is gonna constrict they did that we were living in an anomaly where the federal money was 12 times the regular amount of money for that program and that's drying up and so so so it's bad now it's gonna get worse so but that also helps you get the size of the problem it's like okay so maybe there are 80 people right now in Montpelier they're 450 in Washington County 60,000 people and you know so you know what's your share of that problem and you know so we can do this I mean they've there's a lot of parts of the world they've they've done away with homelessness for veterans because the veterans get like sort of a different funding and for veterans homelessness they've been more of a priority for that population so you know this can be done so and and yeah like where is where it's where's the leadership on this because it's really easy and you know people set their boundaries like this is my job I work 95 it's exhausting I go home I need a break you know and it's like State Department like the agencies that have been running the motel program so we've done our job and so it's it's like people are left for people fall through the cracks so I am now I don't know I mean I love your you're thinking more on it well I'm gonna ask I'm gonna ask another question I got some of us I've got something to contribute on the emergency side yeah you did say that you know what if there was a sudden flood in this community has experienced sudden floods and we was here remember like when the water rises and I think it was observed from your table that if there was a sudden flood this community would rally and people would be dealt with and taken care of is our problem financial or is it moral and spiritual there's a stigma that comes along with being homeless this there was a stigma that comes along with being homeless and I think like Beth was saying that sort of an attitude of pulling yourself up so it's that stigma that I think is what you're talking about that makes it more more than a financial issue a couple of things I think from what I've learned from talking to the workers in Canada and other people involved in this there's a lot of trauma history among these people that is under-recognized in and and I also went to that trauma presentation at the last nation's table was really interesting but there's a lot of things that make people feel like they are not worth helping and they're not worth holding themselves up and you know abuse as a child makes lasting impressions on people's sense of self-worth and so I think that may be another thing that's feeding into this and it's obviously not something you can address in a question here but you know our survey you can't say well trauma because so I think that that may be part of the issue the second comment I would have is that one of the things we see in the community is the behavior issues the kind of things that led the city to move the partly shelter because people get into fights in public and they're using alcohol I would use substances myself there now if I were in that position but so how can we address that how can you navigate those issues and try to make contact with people and work through some of those behavioral challenges that you know is there is there a way to do that I know at that trauma meeting somebody asked for training on how to talk to people that you know we can't I don't have a lot of time to wait so it's a different set of circumstances and how can we sort of well the way that we have tried to do it I think it's merit came in is by having trauma informed spaces and that was what the welcome center was all about because is anybody here familiar with our original shelter and barrier in Seminary Street I mean that was a single family house and three years ago we had 30 people each night residing in that single family house that is not that that could create trauma so we tried to create a new facility that was trauma informed it has more space it has privacy it's attractive it's there's air conditioning in the hot weather there is you know there it's warm the cold weather so that's a piece of it for sure just having the right kind of spaces and that's why it's not necessarily good to just be warehousing people in some big empty building and secondly you have to have support people volunteer staff that that are informed and know what they are doing it's it's really easy to get into a an unfortunate relationship in some of these settings it's called boundaries and you have to pay attention to that your staff has to be ready and then thirdly I think you've got to be really flexible and you know for us we move people from our we have three shelters now we move them we to different shelters if this place isn't working out we say well let's say maybe they'll work at seminary for you know or maybe they'll work in the town of Barry our shelter there so I think you have to be flexible and try different things and be patient with people and then there's the continuing wrap-around care that goes on after that I can't just put a person in a house where they don't help to figure out how to navigate it. Sure. Yeah. I'm sorry, I actually have multiple questions, some of you have questions, but I'm only thrilled with my minor tears. I actually wanted to address well first of all I want to say that you know obviously this issue that there was one easy answer or a few of the answers we are just doing it right? I think a little louder please. I said if there was this issue is not new and if it was there was already really good answers we'd already be doing them and it's going to take multiple levels and very just different things to get things done. I did hear you say though before I ask my real question is that you hand out you notice that even people who need these things like a tent or a sleeping bag you know you're handing them out to them but where are you telling them to go? If they don't have a place to go or they won't go in your home what do you what what happens? That's a good question and thankfully the city of Montpelier has declared that and then the state's attorney declared basically we're not going to criminalize folks camping here. But they couldn't sort of affirmatively say but you can't camp here it's a lot more where you can't camp and I don't know stupid no dogs allowed thing but that's a lot of what happens is you can't be here you can't be here you can't be here. But there are a lot of woods around here there are places people hide away there were people sleeping there was a church that had heated tiles and picnic benches and people turn those into shelters there were two couples living under there people sleep on heating vents people sleep in the information booth people sleep under porches people sleep on porches people sleep up in the woods they build burly little things there's an encampment over by price chopper that's been there for decades nothing burl in their places and we have folks some of our outreach workers who help people sort of navigate where they might go and where and with some sort of on the ground knowledge like okay nobody's being harassed here and then some you know stuff will happen you can't get slashed by a security guard or by another person living outdoors but it's it's one of the things is like it's it's a little bit of wink and nod like you can't there's no yeah and there's problems with designated campgrounds was the thing that you know something happened in Burlington and with the concentration of folks and people are individuals with very different needs but like we had a couple came up and she had like some kind of she was on it was insolent this is diabetes and like she needed to keep it I mean you see people with such medical like who are just barely functional who are left to the elements and it's not really your question but but but yeah but they're like here's a tent I mean we do our best and we'll have this you know like getting on the phone with all sorts of service providers or motels across the state okay how can we get somebody from here to Rutland you know somebody shows up five of closing or on a weekend and there's no place for them to go right now the weather's half decent but 20 below and we had a person leaving another way who was half naked in her state of mind that's the best she could do and like we might our my staff member was like in tears because we she had to go home you know we had you know it's like and so there we do have the after hours of outreach people police are working on a crisis intervention teams but but you know it's really well okay sorry I don't think anybody would not agree with me I mean I think we're all that's why we're all here probably because we're all concerned about people living outside and how horrible that is you know but I guess you know as a citizen a lot earlier you know I go down the bike path and we're taking locks and there's a giant tent there's trash everywhere and it's flying into the giver and somebody's peeing right in front of us you know that it's probably not a good PR thing or you know homelessness and what Montpelier is doing about it and you know my heart breaks for them and I just wonder why it feels like you know we're going to spend like I bet somewhere over $425,000 it's like do we just keep feeding people and are we buying chickens kind of thing isn't there any way that we can take some money when they used to be town farms for instance and they weren't perfect there's going to be no perfect answer for this issue but isn't there like some large piece of land at least if you're going to hand them a tent if you go somewhere where you know where they are and they can have volunteers build it I guess that's kind of language is there any options for getting them in? Peter, Carolyn do you want to talk about? Sure let me just make Peter comment I want to say that was on the housing task force so I've actually looked at both housing and on housing let's remember a couple things one is we're still in a pandemic and we've been in a pandemic for three years the good news about that is that we got a ton of federal money so a lot of the money that's been referred to actually was federal money that's a lot that paid for a lot of people in the motels now so that was not state money although the state has had a general motel program before it's not city money but the city has spent money and the city has allocated for this coming year $400,000 we have a consultant group that is going to come with recommendations in February about for a permanent solution for a more permanent solution and we're hoping that that $400,000 where they're out from the city will be spent on a more permanent solution but that's still a drop in the bucket that's just Montpelier and in fact the state has tended to solve these problems in a bureaucratic way money is very concentrated in the agency for human services and a lot of it goes to Chittenden County and that's where you see most of the housing that they've said has been built in the last few years has been in Chittenden County Down Street did quite a bit of building of the FH housing 10 years ago, 15 years ago, maybe these are these eight years ago but the state needs to see this as a statewide problem and in the Northeast Kingdom there's almost no state money going up there for building there's money for the kinds of programs, the handouts and the band-aids so the only thing I would add is that at the same time as there's a long-range project that's being worked on by our consultants, a number of us are working on the band-aids and one of the big band-aids that's very important that people here can help in is if we are going to have an overflow shelter at Christchurch we're going to need volunteers to help out with various things another thing is that if we're going to have some kind of a, I don't want to say it but some kind of a replacement for what was over the burden's shelter structure we're going to have something like that and it's going to be really helpful if people like people in this room will go over there once in a while with some water with some sandwiches and talk to people who are homeless people who are homeless are just like you and me as Zach Hughes says, one of the outreach workers, every one of us is just one step away from being homeless when you realize that, then you can overcome that fear that you have that this is something strange I can just follow up to the lady's question in front things that we can do, like facilities, shower facilities, restroom facilities can't we open that up to people today? I mean if, but what do we have available for people so that there is a place to do these necessary things We're hoping that the report from the consultants which is going to come out in February I guess that's what's frustrating is if I'm fortunate I'm not a homeless person but if I was, enough of the talking and open the place up Why do we keep talking? Why do we keep talking? Because the city council needs some experts to say this is what you need to do I agree with you, but the city council is not going to listen to you and me The city council will listen to some experts who say take the berry, the street, rec center and do what you have to do to make it accessible and let people go in there to take a shower and so on but when I say that, they go well, not everybody agrees with you The other problem is that you can't just open up public buildings without having staffing and finding staffing for any of these things right now is extremely difficult You can't for example open up city hall for people to come in and sleep in hallway without having somebody It's not a holly and but where there's a wall there's a way You're right, but it's fun Everybody is having trouble hiring right now and I agree with you Let me just tell you a story about city hall There's a guy who found an old toaster oven in a dumpster He decided to take it into city hall and there was no staffing there to cook his dinner That's a little problematic to take a random toaster oven out of a random dumpster The liability issues are real You talked about the trash There are folks in the unhoused community who've worked really hard especially at the end of last year to clean Gerton Park and to be, she said the dead mother of the world's worst fraternity keeping people to clean up after themselves There are some people with maybe personality disorders and we know who they are who throw stuff around There are people who smear feces on the old parkway It was gross and so there's some sad states of being there I understand it's bad PR but it's also just a rough edge of humanity Folks are cognizant of wearing It's, in public works, it's sick of doing cleaning up taking the trash out There were the parks people who called out once again to clean up We tried to rally folks in the unhoused community to pay them through another way to go clean up That was somewhat successful There's a lot of things we're all trying to keep track of Frankly exhaustion Just a second, is there anyone who hasn't asked a question yet who has a question? Yes, Peter? Question for Rick I think you had mentioned Vermont College Could you tell us more about what the process might be for the Vermont College? Well, I wish I knew I was unsuccessful in getting it actually To me, the dormitory buildings on that campus could be an appropriate single room occupancy type building Most of the people who are homeless in Washington County are individuals It's about 80% of the population or more I'm convinced that what we need are small, simple units So, lo and behold, right up the street we've got 160 of them They're called dorm rooms, former dorm rooms But you have to put together a real estate deal It's not easy Those buildings do require quite a bit of rehab Those are 1950s type buildings And they're built out of concrete So they're fairly expensive to retrofit And they have neighbors There's that too Yeah, exactly I have a question, but it's a comment And I think you mentioned it And also from which form today I saw Kent's request For people to sign up to volunteer For a shift at the overflow And maybe if we have a piece of paper And a lot of people sign up Maybe we only do one shift or two shifts per month During the winter And that can really be a positive step That we could all, it's a little thing But we can do it And I'm finding that the little things Seem to really make a difference You know, those conversations You know That was on front porch for us? Yeah Yeah, again, I'm off with the little things We need help with meals, by the way You know, we're feeding 75 people a day And it's very expensive to buy meals So if you're into preparing a meal The multiple kinds, exactly More specifically, we're a roofing board in America And there's very specific food items That, you know, are more sensitive Well, ideally, you know, a balanced meal And we have different groups So it doesn't have to be for 75 people We have 15 people in battery And even if you said Hey, I'll do one night a month That would help us So we'll circulate Peter will do one too And like, your name, your contact And how I can help And I'm being so forward Is to assume that there may be You know, I just want to say one more thing about that You know, we're all looking For a silver bullet for this problem I don't think there is one It is so deep and so structural And, you know, we've got it We've got to keep going for different things But, you know, we can do small things Volunteer at the shelter We can provide a meal We can make a donation And that they do make a difference One other follow-up question Whether, um, items like If community members want to just donate items We can talk about tents and sleeping bags What else can we do with members As far as supplies Hand-launched Laundry detergent and pods Are really good Because we do a lot of laundry in our facilities We tend to get overwhelmed with clothing We really can't take any more And bedding too It just becomes a management problem Winter clothing, like winter gear Hand warmers, foot warmers At your place, we won't take any more clothes Sorry, yeah Be careful Cell phones Cell phones, thank you And I think a person sitting Yeah, you have your hand up right there Up next to the wall, okay? No, thanks I wanted to first of all address The woman who mentioned the bike path About the trash and everything In fact, this summer riding my bike at night Which I do a lot I came across that bar I had ridden that everybody was staying there Someone pulled a knife on me I grew up in Boston So I knew precisely, okay, wait So that was pretty much It's been this quick But I've lived in public housing I've lived in the Montpelier Housing Authority And I may be the only one here that does I'm not sure I've been here in Montpelier for 26 years And I'd say that I've been in the price of the apartments here in town $10,000 a month to start with Without utilities And if I hadn't been to the Montpelier Housing Authority I wouldn't be here Because I'd be priced out Wages don't keep up with that So my question is I was about to get Become homeless again Or become homeless And I got accepted at the authority So I was about a year away from it Is there some way to do something About renting a home? And I'm from Boston And we did this But rents are going up People are buying houses They're monopolizing How many landlords do you got that own 20 buildings in town And every time they go out They force people out by raising Force people out by raising rents That's the problem That's the crux of it Wages end of the month Central of the month Chips end of the month Or don't keep up $50,000 a month That's more than most mortgages For an apartment that's hard to decide On the bathroom They know they can get it Because they know what the demand is And Ken touched upon this When he said capitalism Because that's the basic crux here Is there something you can do On rent control? Has it been tried? I mean I know it's a touchy subject Because nobody likes regulation But in the bottom That's what you're going to have to do That's the bottom line right there That's the tough one They resubmitted it in Massachusetts Through a referendum Unfortunately did away with Rent control in Cambridge And some other areas So it's pretty controversial And the vacancy rate now Is just 2.4% I don't think it's realistic right now Not to put a damper on that I've been thinking about it myself But it's a good idea It's just... Carson we were responding to that Yeah sure Connor Casey from the Medical City Council Give us your offers Thanks so much It's a new issue And it's especially huge Close to that The housing market here I was knocking doors a few weeks ago And there was an 80 year old woman Who lived in the same apartment In Montmelier For about 20 years And she had her rent Jacked up 33% And to me that's predatory She was on disability Her entire world existed In this radius around her apartment And she said I don't know what I'm going to do And if you're a government official The most basic thing you can do Is protect somebody From being evicted from their home So I did this strategic planning A couple of weeks ago at City Council We put it as a priority To look at, first of all Just cause evictions Much like Merlin can pass And a charter change recently I found three of my own friends Who were evicted recently For no reason Just because they can put somebody else in there Who can pay a bit more They were your friends I had evicted two of them I'm scared Yeah But some sort of rent stabilization At least Some people don't make control of rent stabilization There's a very number of words for it Not sure enough We've got to do something Because we're becoming a community Where we have service workers Who come and work in our towns But they can't afford to like Live here at night And that's elitist And that's not the direction we want to go So we're meeting with the housing committee I think on Monday it is And they're going to look the flesh up and out That actually might put something on the charter For a charter change in March The one thing I would say is It's a beautiful thing Having like over 50 people in this room Right 50 people who are like really committed To real immediate change here And when I asked in the City Council I probably shouldn't do this But I've actually learned out against myself And my other councillors We have budget season coming up here And if this is a priority I don't want to sound like the priest At Mass on like Easter I wish we could have this crowd Every Sunday for like Easter You know But we need this kind of crowd In City Council chambers We need it though They're just like turps We need people saying Okay You have a tight budget But this is a priority We need the direct funds You know right Like Because that's the only thing Maybe you have things done But I would ask everybody in this room Those ideas Come to Council on Wednesday nights And share those ideas And say Okay Look there's an 8% increase Without doing anything in the budget But Here's what you're going to do And here's the priority So But I really appreciate it Really appreciate it We are just about in time So that might be a great final We could talk for an hour I hope you can go on I hope the library is going to close Okay Can we do two more? Yes Okay The lady in the back And the woman in the front First to you in the back It's not so much as a question As I really want to address The public restroom issue Because there are no public restrooms Available between 11pm and 6am So We have nowhere else to go I say we The General of the Public Housing Showdown Sue Elton in the room's omelet Okay Hi Feel free to ask me any questions later The public restrooms are a real issue Some of us have pets I happen to be a 53-year-old Little mother My son is a scholarship student At Champlain College I have a Section 8 voucher I don't know where to live I want to hear about The Airbnb situation being addressed I want to hear about The landlords who are Specifically and purposely Keeping our apartments empty Because they're waiting for A better class of tenant I want to hear about Which one of you is going to Invite a homeless person To stay on your couch There are pregnant women out there There are pregnant women out there I'm not blaming you guys I'm not I'm not But This is what we have to do People who are comfortable Are going to have to learn To be uncomfortable For as long as it takes For the people who are uncomfortable To become comfortable I went to Goddard College Out of Olympia I have been homeless More than once in this state With my child I was homeless when I was pregnant I am now homeless again I'm my son in college This is an ongoing problem I hate reading articles in the world About how we're having our 12th annual And hunger homelessness rally I don't know how much money those things cost I do have a job I do work I sleep in my car With my pad And then my pad sits in my car Where's my son going for Thanksgiving? Anyone? I don't know either Neither does he At all bet that's affecting his poor And his friends So not really a question for a baby But it is a question Like this gentleman said It's really nice to see you all here People know we're out there Thank you Thank you very much And one last Who is this woman in the front? Thank you Hi, I just wanted to mention If anybody else is interested In other opportunities To take action I work with Rick at Good Samaritan I have a sign up list If anybody wants to think about Meal preparation As something you can contribute Please feel free to I'll circulate this around Or I'll put it up in the front You can sign up Thanks Thank you all for coming Thank you, Beth