 We will be hearing from a number of witnesses on the Budget Adjustment Act. We've been asked by the Appropriations Committee to weigh in on the proposals being changed. So just a quick primer on what a Budget Adjustment Act is. It's just the mid-year review of, first of all, it's a review of how the budget as we passed it that last May is functioning, but also these are requests for additional fundings this particular year and the funding can either be from some of the general fund balance that we have heard that there is surplus or it might be ARPA money that is being asked to be distributed in addition to the funds that were distributed back in through the budget in May. So with us today we have Commissioner Hanford from the Department of Housing and Community Development, Gusty Dillig and Jen Holler from VHCB, Maura Collins from VHFA and we're expecting Commissioner Greshan from the from the fiscal office for them for the administration to discuss what's here. The Budget Adjustment Letter is available on our website and it does start off with a question about funding for some military issues. We will try to track down the National Guard in the next couple of days to ask them about about their feelings on this it seems like it's fairly straightforward there is a change but and there is a italicized information that talks about what the changes are are about. But today we're gonna be talking about requests for money to be forwarded to different organizations for some of the programs that have been in place and I'll just leave it there for right now we this is the only topic we're discussing this morning so I'm not sure we'll be here for three hours but but we're not in any hurry to rush through some of this information. So I'll just pass the microphone right over to Commissioner Hanford and let him discuss the administration requests for what's in the what's in the Budget Adjustment Act. So good morning Josh. Good morning for the record Josh Hanford Commissioner of Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development. Hopefully you are all off to a good new year as good as it can be anyways and thanks for inviting me in so early and the rest of the folks here. I'll just you know sort of start real high level here and just state the obvious from the beginning that we know finding housing that Vermonters can afford is challenging all across the state right now we hear it from everyone every single day you know that's why the governor and the legislature has already pushed for some of the largest investments in housing in Vermont's history over the last few years and we're doing that again here with the Budget Adjustment Act you know more funding available to build and repair housing is needed now and it can't wait to the end of this session. We have tremendous amounts of ARPA state fiscal recovery funding available and an ever-growing housing crisis that calls for more action now. Last year we focused heavily on permanent housing for the homeless you know as a result you know we were able to to build around 800 new permanently affordable homes and another 800 are currently under development you know with that we've also helped over 1,300 families exit homelessness into some form of permanent housing which you know makes a big difference out there in a community. We're also helping the folks that have homes already make them more affordable with support for heating and weatherization and carbon emissions. Much of this work was funded with ARPA funds and one-time general funds but we know we have much more work to do to provide the housing that Vermonters need right now. Another area that we hear more and more is Vermont's middle income and working families are also experiencing a housing crisis. We have an all-time low inventory of homes for sale. We simply you know have we simply have not been building enough homes for decades and there's a tremendous lack of decent affordable homes for working middle income families to purchase. We just don't have the supply and we need to jump start the construction of more modest homes built in Vermont. Without more modest price homes available the workers we need like nurses and teachers can't afford to live in Vermont and it creates a spiral of crisis is that all linked back to housing availability supply at multiple income levels and types of housing need. You know this lack of housing in Vermont is holding us back. It's holding us back from recovery. It's holding us back from opportunity and growth and the governor believes we can't afford to wait any longer to make more investments in affordable housing. You know the benefits of good homes should be within reach of every Vermonter and we have the chance to do that now in an ongoing way over the next few years with that the resources we have. So in the 80 million dollar budget adjustment act the 80 million dollars is the request. Most of it ARPA funds. There's 20 million dollars that is to continue in ARPA to continue the successful Vermont housing improvement program which supports affordable apartment and ADU creation and existing properties with a focus on vacant and code violating properties. The first round of VHIP in 2020 used 7.5 million dollars in CRF money to create 240 units of affordable housing with approximately half serving households exiting homelessness. I have numbers on you know sort of which towns those are in but every county in Vermont had units. The next five million dollars in ARPA funding was approved last session to continue VHIP and it's already been fully obligated and will produce approximately 150 new units all serving families exiting homelessness again in every region of the state. The goal with this 20 million dollars BAA ask with ARPA funds is to seamlessly continue this cost effective program and create over 400 new units to serve households exiting homelessness and families in need of quality affordable housing. You know this program also supports neighborhood reinvestment. It bolsters grand list and it will produce and is a smart growth housing policy by vesting in underutilized housing stock we already have. I see questions. I don't know if you want me to stop at each section or go through. I'm happy if it's related to this piece to take questions as they come. Are you at a spot where you feel like you can stop before you move on to the next section? Yes I'm going to jump into the next 50 million dollars for VHCB. Okay representative Hango this is on the on the VHIP ask. Yes please could you repeat those numbers for 2020 and 2021 the amount spent and the number of units built please? Sure. So it was a 7.5 million dollars in CRF money that produced 240 units with about half serving the homeless and the 5 million in ARPA funds approved last session has all been obligated. Those units aren't aren't built yet but the estimates from the homeownership centers are for 150 units and those are all targeted to serve those exiting homelessness. They received more requests than the 5 million we had so we had to cut all the requests back and you know award them a proportional amount in there. Their estimates actually totaled up to around 160 units but with the cuts where we're estimating more like 150 at this point. Thank you. And Commissioner Hanford just one of the issues with the VHIP program you mentioned that that there was X amount of dollars spent using the 2020 CRF funds in the program that we did immediately after the COVID crisis started and as you know the the the bill that would have further clarified or evolved the VHIP program was was vetoed last year. What are you and so we don't have that in in in statute and I understand we have it in the budget. We had it in the budget and and the administration feels like they're fine using it in the way that you just described and providing these units. Can you just fill us in on what standards you're using in in putting out the money or using the standards that were created under the CRF money or under the under the bill that isn't you know under the standards where we felt like where we all felt like the program had evolved to. Sure. Sure. You know the the standards that we used for CRF money and the standards we used to distribute this last five million are really the same. They were the following the policy that was in S79 of a maximum $30,000 grant with a match requirement and a slight difference between whether folks were committed to serving homeless folks exiting homelessness or you know folks or just requiring those units to be affordable to families below 80 percent AMI. What we actually did with the five million was require all the units to serve folks exiting homelessness because the need so critical AHS partnered and we just made that a requirement of the the sort of the RFP if you will to the homeownership centers and they had no problem with landlords accepting that responsibility. They saw the benefits and the need to do that. So our you know sort of policy that we're using for these funds is actually I would say more restrictive than what the policy was in S79 at this point. I think one of the challenges going forward and I've been asked this during the summer by Joint Fiscal Committee in the fall by appropriations is folks were asking how many ADUs did you produce with this this funding and the answer is very little because ADUs cost more money. You're building a new apartment as opposed to repairing something that's offline and the $30,000 cap is not enough and we were under very short time restrictions especially with the CRF money that building ADUs from scratch within that 10 months the gut you know magically extended at the 11th hour just wasn't in the cards. But we've been pushed to look at more ADU and ADU unit creation with these funds. You know and frankly some of the easier to fix apartments are getting harder to find. So you know like a lot of things during this pandemic I think having flexibility and choice to respond to what the market is throwing us is going to be needed frankly. You know $30,000 is an incredible bargain for getting units online and having you know folks exiting homeless committed to those units and I'm anticipating we haven't seen it now but I'm anticipating that $30,000 apartments and ADUs are going to be harder and harder to find with construction costs, supplies, materials all increasing. One more question on VHIP from Representative Brown. Thank You Chair Stevens good to see you Josh. One question so at 79 or actually the arbor money no excuse me the CARES money sorry had a requirement that there be a covenant attached to apartments that were renovated via a grant. My question is did that covenant extend to the $5,000,000 in arbor funds that we're using now? Yes yes absolutely. In fact the covenant goes with whatever if whether it's a grant or a forgivable loan. There is a housing covenant that goes with these properties. We're in when they transfer because a couple of these apartments have sold during this period and that gets recorded. We sign off on it. The new owner has that responsibility you know between the homeownership centers you know the legal instruments we put in place and the department you know seeing any transfer you know this we feel like this is covered and there's good practice already around this through what we do with some of the CDBG money through the homeownership centers for those repair programs that we've you know been doing for 25 years they all operate with this same housing covenant placed in the land records and so forth. One follow-up is are you suggesting that this new $20 million ask that there be a provision that more than $30,000 can be used to renovate an apartment that would require more than $30,000 and that that would be adjusted through fewer renovations or borrowing from one to another is that what you're suggesting here Josh? Yeah well I'm raising the issue and I've been asked you know from appropriators about this very issue because the budget language is is not specific it just authorizes X amount to carry out you know a rental rehabilitation program on existing units or ADUs. It doesn't specify the parameters like many of our housing programs they you know authorize in a dollar amount and set a goal you know they don't decide whether you're gonna allow you know you know X amount of insulation or X amount of every specific requirement and so if we're going to hit ADUs and if we're going to keep meeting the need as costs rise I think we're gonna be pushed into that. If you look at the numbers that I have outlined for this 20 million to create over 400 units that 400 units divided by $30,000 per grant it would be more than that so I'm already suggesting that some of the costs are gonna rise and that you know the homeownership centers that we grant these funds to are going to try to get the best bang for the buck they can and that we will so forth but we have to be realistic that costs are increasing and that you know do we want to say no to a possible project that's gonna cost $42,000 in X particular community you know that has some great projects online that could come online I think that's going to be you know one of the things that this this committee the appropriators you know I'm just being open about that this is this is going to be something we're gonna have to deal with. Should we be placing the authority with your agency to do such a thing? I believe that's how I believe that's how it would work if there's an amount appropriated that department like all you know agencies well I don't know all but certainly DHCD and all elements of agency of commerce community development in our statue allows us to develop programs grant programs housing community development programs we've done tons of them and most of them don't specify you know the level of detail that would that would you know require us to to to seek you know clarification on moving a maximum $10,000 or so forth as long as the goals and the higher level you know yeah I guess I would just say the goals and outcomes are defined by the legislation. Very good thank you Josh. Thanks. So Josh go ahead on on to the DHCB funds. Okay next there's $50 million of this $80 million budget adjustment is targeted for Vermont Housing Conservation Board to receive for mixed income multifamily rental and shelter expansion you know the goal here is to continue continued funding is needed to support the pipeline of projects in development with a priority on projects serving households exiting homelessness and other forms of supportive housing you know particular recovery housing or other other needs out there. A goal here that that we've talked about is 250 units you know these are more permanent you know new projects there's a higher per unit cost and we need to send a strong signal to continue keep keep continue developing projects keep working with our housing developers out out there of all types to bring these projects you know DHCB has been tremendous in moving the money they already have you know they have a board meeting coming up here in the next few weeks I believe with over $50 million in requests already so this is a signal that we need to keep this money moving you know we'll have a whole nother budget to debate the rest of the session about additional dollars both you know general fund and ARPA but this is to keep the pipeline moving to award more funding that we have available right now to address this housing crisis happy to try to answer questions but you know you do have Gus and Jen here to for details on that for certain yeah we'll um we'll get to them um for details when we're done I think with with you so you don't have to keep bouncing around um and then and then can you give us an introduction to the uh the the next the middle the missing middle home ownership program sure um so another five million dollars we're proposing ARPA is to establish a a missing middle income home ownership development pilot program that is a mouthful we're working on sort of a new name I believe when when Mora speaks she may mention a different way to describe this um but it it this is really to support the development and construction of new modest priced homes for purchase by you know middle income working families um this pilot program is a partnership between Department of Housing Community Development and Vermont Housing Finance Agency with input from VHCB we've been working and meeting for months now really to talk about what this program should look like what should be the components it's really based off a national model which um proposes to provide construction and development financial subsidies for new construction or substantial rehabilitation of owner of new and owner occupied homes um the funds will be used to support homebuilders access to upfront construction capital through Vermont banks and credit unions and provide a direct project subsidy for up to 35 percent of the eligible develop development costs per home and it will serve a sort of broad spectrum of affordability um and the sales price of the home you know will will be capped to um you know not move into that next sort of bracket of of upper middle income homes and so forth this is really meant to increase the supply of modest homes that we're just not seeing the market bring online naturally and it's been you know decades since we've really um built these sort of left to the market to to accomplish this on their own um you know I really want to save a lot of the details here for more to talk through with you but we've been hearing this need from all corners of the state from all um you know perspectives and it really gets to that we really can't be successful on our other goals of of addressing our workforce challenges you know keeping nurses and teachers here if we can't have you know homes for folks to move into first time purchase first generation purchase you know folks can't move out of rental housing if they can't find a modest home to to purchase and we're really stuck in the and we're not we don't have a complete housing cycle here and we need to do something this is a modest pilot program to try something new based on a national model that's been getting a lot of attention you know the build back better bill is stalled but we still think this has merit and we ought to try something here um to get this get this moving um I guess I will I will I will hold back more more details on that for for VHFA to talk to um wanted to know if you want to need to hit very briefly on what is also also in the BAA it's not in the DHCD's ask it's actually in the Department of Children Families but it's a a statewide rental risk pool as well but I see some hands up maybe there for the missing middle income home ownership piece um so Chip I believe your hand is up from before um I do have a question chair okay and then Representative Murphy okay um just quickly um will there be income guidelines for this money that you just spoke of John Josh yes absolutely there there's a maximum um household income caps as well as price of homes that they can purchase but it is it is a newer model that um suggests that um we need to provide families that are trying to get a start into home ownership that don't have the resources to do that a chance to get into home ownership and to create some wealth and pass it on um this is becoming more and more of an equity issue across um different um different communities in this country and people are recognizing that our housing policy for the last you know 100 years has is focused on you know affordable housing rental for for low income and very low income and if you were lucky enough to get into home ownership you had great um chances to pass on that wealth then you had you know tax benefits but if you don't have the resources to get into it to start with you're just out of luck and it's creating um a real disparity in and and wealth across different communities in our country and there's increased efforts to try to do something here that we want to model in Vermont yeah I would I would agree I have heard from a number of working people who have for one reason or another been displaced and have not been able to find a new place to live or to even or contractors to build a new place so I would go along with that are we talking about uh in excess of a hundred percent of AMI for qualifications on this yeah I mean yeah so so um many of the standards for what they define as um uh affordable federal programs that do exist that allow for help with affordable housing go up to 120 percent AMI um that that is some of the standards we have some of the standards that BHCB has this federal program is modeled to go up to 140 percent um the you less subsidy is provided into the home the higher up you go so you know between 80 percent and 140 percent it's sort of a sliding scale of the amount of subsidy so folks on the higher end of that level are receiving less subsidy you know they can afford to purchase a home that costs more than someone at 100 percent AMI is generally how it works and I think you know more will have a few uh slides that sort of in some way demonstrates that maybe all the numbers aren't there um because you know this is this is still developing great thanks again josh yeah this is just um a detail and I know we'll get lots more but um when we talk about modest home price and the actual construction of new I'm just curious if there's a dollar value being placed on that because affordable housing has always been one of those things I rightly say when I was in our development review board because um it's it's it's still pricey it's very pricey and it's it's increasing fast unfortunately um you know I don't want to throw exact numbers out there but um because I don't have them in my head right now but um you know it's based on bedroom size so if you're doing a two bedroom home versus a three bedroom home there's different price escalators and you know VHFA already provides um lending you know products to help folks get into affordable um homes that that have these caps um I think it's fair to say that when most people you know hear you know $350,000 for for maybe someone at 100 120 120 percent AMI they might say that's not affordable but that's what the numbers show someone at 120 percent could afford I think another interesting tidbit to throw in here is you know this program is meant to um to sort of build upon some of our other programs we have like the down payment assistance shared equity other models that help folks afford that home purchase the problem is there aren't enough homes to put that down payment assistance towards you know that is not a supply side solution we're talking about supply side solutions of development getting builders and developers to undertake more housing development and committing upfront to commit to more of those homes to be at this price point rather than $500,000 which they can sell like that tomorrow on the market we need them to commit to $350,000 that was what I was looking for yeah yeah I was curious because I was looking at that supply side as opposed to how you know the buyer's perspective and the the restrictions on their incomes and all that I I was curious when we're talking about granting um monies and support to the development of the housing to the construct of it I was curious and so it would still be within that VHFA guidance parameters yes and there's two components of this one is um for um a risk share so when folks go and get construction financing they still have to it costs $400,000 to build a modest home that we need to sell for $300,000 let's use that right really simple but they still need to borrow the money at $400,000 because that's the true construction price so we need to subsidize the construction lending to build more and then we need to have a subsidy to bring down that cost for modest folks to afford that home so this this program this pilot has two components more access to capital at the prices we want them to construct it at and then actually a buy-down subsidy so the households can afford to get into those homes that the developer builder has committed to set aside for folks and not offer on the market at $500,000 and um you know mora has some some good slides sort of explaining this thank you okay representative clacky thank you good morning josh and morning thank you for all your kind of um entrepreneurial um visioning on on our housing crisis I appreciate it the work you've done um I'm a little in South Burlington we had inclusionary zoning um for the last three years and now it's it's moved to something else but it was quite complex for developers of course to uh if the developing large plots of land to include 10 or 15 percent of what would be affordable but that is also a way that I it did help South Burlington be more integrated um I'm I'm I'm here I'm trying to understand this and I'll learn more details from mora I'm sure but I hear your supply side but isn't the revolving loan fund that at five million dollars with the hcp for shared equity doing the same thing but giving it to the homeowners versus the developers and couldn't we I think that five-year rub revolving on front was capitalized one million a year for five years couldn't we build that up more quickly now with dollars in your kind of overall proposal to help with that and I think that that is um it also keeps those buildings affordable in the future as I understand it so I hear you're saying you want a lot of different strategies but why not build that up at the same time yeah I think this program can work in conjunction with the shared equity model absolutely I think um you know a couple different things going on here the shared equity you know program targets you know even lower income households getting them into homes and it so requires a larger subsidy than than some of this model you know someone at 120 percent AMI to get into a to get a home built to get people to build more of those homes and get into them requires less subsidy and so we can do more units is the hope and it's a different model that that home is restricted forever to stay always affordable to never which family moves in there and you know the family when they sell it their equity is tied to the benefit they received early earlier and you know um the rapid appreciation of that home you know works well for a family that's exiting to take some of that equity to move to a different location somewhere that model doesn't always maybe work in you know say a rocking ham or some place where that home isn't appreciating as fast but still they need to sell the home they need to move for whatever reason in five or ten years and you know this this model has some chance for that family to take some of that wealth generation and move it on you know frankly to provide it to their family to build wealth you know as the American dream you know envisioned and so it's a couple different strategies that aren't mutually exclusive they can work together and enhance each other and it's still that the shared equity program isn't often you know as much of a supply side solution as it is an individual household solution to get into a home that already exists or is available and we're running short supply on those so we need more homes built that we can incentivize fought by you know lower construction loans and risk shares there and various subsidy models including shared equity and this model that moves up the income ladder a little bit as well they work together I guess is a short answer but why not capitalize to the five million for the shared equity program right now yeah i guess i'm not familiar with what exactly you're referring to capitalize the the five million rlf that maybe is a question for gus okay i'll i'll i'll ask him because you know this state dollar so i i'm thinking the shared equity people do get equity if it grows they they right so there is some equity acquisition there if they resell it but it does remain permanently affordable and so with state dollars i think the investment is what's best for the state and the community that exists afterwards so i i i i have to learn more about it josh i i just trying to get details around i'll get it happy to happy to chat more on it i think that you know we're proposing arpa dollars here which are abundant and um can work in a model that doesn't um lock those funds up in perpetuity that's the arpa you know challenge right now right that we have to spend these and they can't be locked up in a loan for permanent um so that's one way why we're proposing arpa funds can work in this model and not um directly for shared equity so to speak and that the shared equity you know just real quick you know it's only 25 percent of the equity is um able to to move on of the entire appreciation of that home so you have to have a lot of appreciation um in certain markets for that to really be an asset that can be moved on um to another location it it's successful don't take my words um uh out of context there but it just we need more than that tool we need to pilot some new solutions because we've had the shared equity model for a long time in vermont and it's very successful but we're not seeing enough supply come online we're we're just not thank you very much and specifically josh just to be clear we're not seeing enough supply come online for another economic level above where shared equity has traditionally been i mean we're proposing to go into an area of of helping vermont's gain housing at a high higher level of am i um than we have in the past with this program with this proposal yeah i mean in real real uh sort of high level terms the way i think about it is we've always been in a scarcity of dollars of resources to put towards affordable housing development and so rightly we've always focused on serving the needs of the very lowest income first it's in all of our policies it's you know we we build apartments and homes serving the lowest income households first you know over this last few years with resources flowing in one we have more resources two we've we have focused to date primarily on folks at the lowest income with all these funds you know building you know 1600 units of housing you know with mainly targeted to those exiting homelessness lots of new programs we're seeing the need to focus on um you know income slightly higher than that our housing sort of entire spectrum of housing has a huge gap in the middle and it's this sort of modest missing middle income you hear referred to it's just not available and it's really going to affect our sort of working families moving forward and um put us in at risk for a lot of other issues workforce folks to serve on our you know our volunteer boards and work in our hospitals it's it's becoming the thing that um screams the loudest from the economic development world and all the businesses are saying we need housing how can we help build housing for our you know middle income paid workers because they're saying they can't find a home in Vermont despite what we think is a good salary um and it's it's becoming a um a just a a crisis level at every corner so it's it's time to put some proposals on the table um to address this this area as well represented by wrong thank you chair uh good to see you commissioner hope all's well um i gotta just a what i think is a quick question on that uh am i uh affordability calculation we were talking about um i think it's it's absolutely mind boggling we're talking about affordable housing prices in like the three hundred thousand dollar range but um so when you're talking about establishing this like you know affordable mortgage payment is that including um property tax obligation possibly mortgage insurance or are you just looking at like like baseline bank note you know um great question when they calculate what's affordable to folks at 80 percent a mile 100 120 up to 140 and look at what they should be paying for their total housing costs it's um mortgage property tax and homeowners insurance you know just like um rental when you calculate those same um what's affordable to folks at different income levels it's it's it's supposed to be rent and utilities so that's you know the the mortgage um that a family can afford for the price of home they can afford it's all factoring all all those components they can all that in okay wonderful thank you i'm glad to hear that all right commissioner um and and you've done a great job like getting more Collins all lined up but we'll get to her we'll get to her in a little while the last piece that's in here and i'm not sure if you're the right person to ask or if it'll be uh commissioner or secretary aggression it's just the idea of um the bottom of page two there's a there's a uh exclusions and it's going to allow that um it looks like that it's going to expand the scope of the statutory exclusions pertaining to residential rental agreements to include occupancy and housing funded by um federal emergency rental assistance funds and is that a question for you or for um or or for someone else interesting i'm not prepared to answer that question i don't know um what page number you're referring to that's on page two of the letter that was sent to us from the appropriations committee um no we'll hold off on that right now we don't we will we'll we'll seek that out okay um the one thing i didn't want to mention and it's it's like i said not in dhtd's baa ask but um it's in department of children and families is there's five million to establish a statewide rental risk pool which provided which is targeted to provide up to five thousand dollars to repair documented damages by by tenants referred slash rehoused through different ahs assistance programs um you know and this is meant to to repair damages that are our result of unsuccessful tendencies um through some of these rehousing programs because when those units get damaged it results in off lot units offline which we can't afford right now and a greater hesitancy from those landlords to participate in these sort of programs again and really dcf if you want to hear about this um should should speak in more detail it's in their baa um we have worked on it with them um this is one of the recommendations um as well as continuing vhip actually all these components from the ga housing working group you know they proposed a statewide rental risk pool like this that um saw the value there there's a lot of states that have these washington state is who are modeling this program after the five thousand dollars uh repair for damage limit is based on what they've seen really successful um and dcf has operated sort of spot programs like this in the past and it seems really important to have a statewide program like this right now when we have lots of rehousing programs out there which are are um you know helping people move into apartments of all types private landlords non-profits and when those um situations don't work out and those apartments are damaged and they can't be brought back online and that landlord has felt like they've been left on to their own on to the wolves um they're not going to get a new tenant back in there and so this could help with that ongoing challenge and if you want more questions on that i'd encourage to uh you've talked to sarah philips um have her in all right uh well thank you so much for your time that was um wow it was 40 minutes so um i will be here for questions i'm just going to turn the camera off and drink some water and clear my head for a second and so um we are going to take a five minute break before we get to uh commissioner aggression i'm sorry i gave you a promotion um commissioner that was inadvertent but um well taken uh we'll take five minutes and be back at 10.05 morning mr chair morning good morning nice and gray nice and gray and windy all right um i'm going to go ahead and get started with commissioner aggression commissioner thank you for coming in to talk about um this budget adjustment um as you know as you just heard josh filled us in pretty much on some of the specific requests i think we just would like you to fill in where your where the administration is coming from from from your level and um and before we move to um phcb and phfa on on some of the specific program discussions happy to thank you for uh inviting me uh good morning and happy new year and to you yeah happy holidays so um my only addition and i thought uh the commissioner did a great job much better than i could have explaining the housing initiative um this is the only major arpa initiative in the budget adjustment and my only addition to that is uh there was uh or there is in the budget adjustment that we submitted a couple weeks ago one kind of wonky aspect to it and that there are two different funding sources for the housing initiative um predominantly uh the funding sources arpa and that is true for the phcb piece for the the phfa piece as well and the as well the the hip piece too so that's a total of 75 million dollars that is the proposal is to fund with arpa funds but the uh rental risk mitigation pool that the commissioner refer to uh that uh should you choose to um can be better explained by our colleagues at dcf that is funded with general fund so the five million rental risk mitigation pool is funded with general fund um in large part or predominantly due to the fact that the agency of administration and our consultant guidehouse thought that might be higher risk in terms of adhering to federal guidelines for the use of arpa funds and thus to ensure that we didn't trip any red flags we would fund it with general fund the second point i would make on the final point i'd make is that um is part of uh a slightly larger initiative within dcf that may be of interest to your committee um and that is that in addition to the five million dollars to the rental risk mitigation pool there is approximately a half a million dollars for general assistance transport um and that is for um people who may need a place to stay but they find that the available rooms are used up in their area and thus there's a appropriation to provide transport to them to other shelters in other areas in addition is about a half a million dollar appropriation for the rapid recovery housing initiative um that dcf can explain so the combination of what i would call housing initiatives is a little over six million dollars but five million of that is the rental risk mitigation pool that commissioner referred to referred to earlier all of those are funded with general fund the body of the proposal 75 million which is funded with arpa so i just wanted to point that out um within our budget adjustment that is how we presented it um but when you kind of forget about the funding sources and just uh pool it together there's a total of 80 million dollars of pure kind of housing initiatives in the budget adjustment that we presented several weeks ago but thank you and and i had also heard through the grapevine that there was an issue with um we had appropriated we all had appropriated nine million dollars for weatherization in arpa funds that might have to move over to general funds um allocation is that was that did i hear that right i don't know but i will get back to you straight away um that does ring a bell um but i i don't have the details on that and i will get back to you on that okay no i appreciate that you know just if you can i mean we also have representative jessup is joining us today from the appropriations committee um i believe the money for weatherization was going to go through vhfa so maybe more columns might have um some information on that as well um right uh that was part of a 48 million dollar uh swap out of arpa into general fund um largely for the reasons that we thought i think the vhfa piece was going to be operated as a revolving loan fund now that you mentioned it and i believe that was an issue also with arpa that's not about loans i don't think i think their guidelines point towards granting as opposed to a revolving loan fund and i think that was the reason i think more columns can explain more more about that but i think that was the reason okay great well we'll get to her in a little bit um representative kalaki has a question uh john you're muted thank you and good morning uh good morning in our earlier iterations of arpa money um around housing there also was an increase of wraparound services um and i know that's not our committee but it is integrated into the housing issue especially for people transitioning homelessness is there for the human services committee is there an increase in those dollars as well as we look to build out even more housing transitional housing the homeless in this but and i i think that um the uh dcf will be a good place to go for that question the answer is yes but i think the details can be provided by commissioner brown better than i thank you very much all right any further questions for commission regression right now um i appreciate the um the clarification on that on the general fund the usage of the general fund money that that's helpful um i see no further questions for the commissioner so commissioner you're free to hang out and listen in um or go to your next meeting which i'm sure is scheduled soon thank you all right and so let's move on to vhcb we have gusty lick here and jen holler um to present with um their thoughts on the the 50 million dollars that's being requested in the of arpa funds for the purchase of more units um gusts welcome happy new year happy new year to the whole committee uh thanks both to you and the commissioner gresham and commissioner hanford um jen's going to lead this uh presentation off we only have a few slides so it'll be both a little bit of a report to bring you up to date about why this uh request is needed um along with what the great progress that's been made over the last um many months since we began the c with the crf funding and i just want to say as a as a matter of course in terms of reporting to you on that crf funding um we are returning a total of 86 dollars to the state of vermont so all those funds that 33 million dollars that you pushed for were well used but for the last 86 dollars so with that uh jen the floor is yours to lead this presentation off thank you gusts and good morning happy new year to everyone that's very good to see your faces um and we appreciate the time before the committee um i'm going to lead off because i didn't i didn't get to have the opportunity to speak to all of you when you had your joint hearing with um house human services in october you heard from gusts and uh and jenny so a lot of that information um that background information you already have and um we're going to provide discuss it just a quick update to put the budget adjustment act request into context um and show you a little bit about what's been happening since then so i'm going to share my screen and if for any reason that doesn't work out ron also has the presentation and it's on your um on your website committee's page you haven't made a co-host so you should be able to okay there you go right okay good to go good all right thank you chair stevens um so what um just by way of introduction gust mentioned the coronavirus relief funds those are out um and people have moved in here's a the picture on the left is actually of a highly energy efficient modular home that was placed in the mobile home park in bradford and this is a picture of the um and least of um households that were formerly experiencing homelessness so so this is a picture of a new um new resident um getting oriented to their home in bradford uh you might recall a conversation in your committee led by representative trojan about the the idea of putting um similar homes in a park in heartbreak and that has also happened the uh the picture on the on the left is of zephyr um now called zephyr place in williston it was the former town suites um has been purchased uh by the champlain housing trust it is being converted to 38 homes for formerly homeless households with supportive services and then there'll be 33 also 33 permanently affordable apartments for a mix of incomes between low and moderate income families so last session um largely with um with your committee's leadership the legislature and the administration worked to appropriate um now it really is unprecedented is used a lot because it usually is the it really is the right word um level of appropriations um specifically for housing so from a combination of sources you appropriated 144 million through the vermont housing and conservation board for the creation of new housing um and this is uh these are the different sources and this is where we are with it of that 144 million 78 million has been committed to projects which means that there's about 66 million currently available as commissioner handford said um we have in hand applications for 50 million dollars in projects and those range from franklin county to windham county from bennington county up to caledonia county all corners of the state um and so i think um it would be helpful to kind of run through the different pots of where we are um to help put the the baa request into context so you want you will recall age 319 from last year which you um often refer was often referred to as the fast track bill um and there was 10 million dollars in there specifically for housing and shelter that could get going and underway in 2021 that's all been fully committed and the pictures you see along the left side of the screen are um are uh examples of new housing that's either been created or is underway with those funds so at the top left you might recognize rick de angeles the executive director of a good good samaritan haven and knee standing in front of the former twin city motel in berlin which is being converted to 35 um new beds and um service space uh for the homeless with lots of supports from morshan county mental health capstone and others and down street housing and community development is helping them with that development the next photo down is an image from um stowe and we're delighted to be able to create be creating affordable housing in stowe it's not always an easy market to get into um and there will be a total of 16 new apartments there a combination of an existing building and two newly constructed buildings the next one down is um what was formerly known as the phoenix house in um in berry and that had been leased by the well in coordinate down street owns it um and in coordination with the um department of corrections that had been housing for those coming out of um corrections facilities and allowing them to uh transition the department corrections has moved away from that model but that opened up this building and it's being um it's being repurposed and is now currently housing 15 people who had been experiencing homelessness and um is being um under good sam's leadership and then the final picture on the bottom is a former jail building it's a historic building in downtown st johnsbury um the building in the foreground the gray one is the former jailers house and those two buildings are being converted to nine permanently affordable apartments for people experiencing homelessness and that construction i guess i would say is about two thirds done now um so that was the fast track bill of arpa state fiscal recovery funds there was 64 million dollars appropriated and um at this point 36.7 is available you also procreated created state general funds one time of 70 in the amount of 70 million and there's 30 29 30 million available in that right now but again we have 50 those combined to be 66 and again we have 50 million dollars in applications right now um our board will we will be receiving another round of applications in in february as josh mentioned our boards meeting um later this month to act on those 50 million in applications and then we'll be doing additional board meetings and additional rounds of awards in the coming months so with the money that's been committed so far it will um has or will fund the creation of 476 homes and beds most of them are rental units that's where the largest need is and 205 of those are explicitly dedicated to households experiencing homelessness there are also 50 transitional units so that good sam project is an example of that we funded 51 home ownership units through the shared equity model throughout the state um some accessibility projects to the Vermont center for independent living and infrastructure improvements to 233 mobile home mods um a point that would be good to make here is that i think you've you've heard us refer to the housing recovery working group it's a working group of the housing funders phcb the department of housing and community development um phfa and the agency of human services um and the vermont state housing authority and we commit uh continue to meet on our bi-weekly basis to coordinate the different funding sources um and do the best we can to ensure the strategic use of them all so these projects were all funded in consultation with them and the communication between our agencies remains um remains high and at a really productive level which we're happy to report the um to get back to the arpa sfr the 50 million dollars it's in the governor's budget adjustment act proposal certainly phcb supports that we're very appreciative the language is and gussel touch on this later is the same as what was in um the big bill last year um and there are many ways in which that uh that funding um knowing that that funding is uh there is going to make improve our ability to use the existing funds more strategically and plan better for the future um so for a few examples of what we funded with the supplemental funding is that there's been a lot of conversation about converting hotels and we get many requests for information and updates from other states actually who are because we did a couple of these with crf and other uh jurisdictions are asking about how this has worked and we know what are the some of the lessons learned here just a few examples there's the chalet down in bridal borough and then um daisin and shelburn was recently purchased by the champlain housing trust um in colchester the former handy suites is now um 21 um apartments available to those who are fleeing sexual or domestic abuse and then a new place in burlington you might recall that there was a proposal to um stand up some quick housing to house those who are homeless um on sears lane with uh sort of temporary shipping container type structures and our board was not comfortable with doing that um declined to fund that proposal and then worked with others and um a new place who was the proponent was able to find a former motel and convert that and that's now um housing the homeless and it has community space at a kitchen as well so with that i'll hand it over to gas okay so just to um give you a sense of what's going on around the state um the top left um is the total block in ruttland which is going through energy upgrades and the conversion of what was office space into three new apartments um i'm pleased to tell you and i know this was a question we got from representative kalaki that we've just awarded uh 500 000 to do repairs of farm worker housing around the state to the champlain housing trust who are working with uvm and uvm extension to have to outreach to the farm community uh we have in our hands a proposal for redevelopment of harbour place they're replacing harbour place with another motel that we've helped them purchase as part of the ga program but that site will be redeveloped as multifamily housing and hopefully also single family housing as you've begun to discuss um firehouse lane in bristol is a long time project uh community redevelopment project in bristol that is going to become 20 or 25 rental apartments along with other improvements and new firehouse in the community and then fox run in berlin is attached adjacent to the to the berlin mall there's already under construction 100 units of elderly housing this will be family housing that will be a short walk from the school so let's move on to the next slide jen um this just is a slide we've put together to give you a sense of what's being accomplished around the state and where the how quickly people are are moving so over a three-year period ulma over 1100 uh we've funded over 1100 units with just about half 45 percent over 500 apartments for people who've experienced homelessness that's in large part because of the crf funding but it is typical for 25 of the projects we fund to be providing homes for the homeless since january of 2020 uh that's 475 new units have come on already come online with over half for the homeless by the end of this year we'll add 386 apartments including 190 for the homeless and more in 2023 as we appropriate more funding there'll be more units in 2023 available more apartments uh in 2023 uh that number will grow and then we'll begin to move into 2024 among those numbers are 50 new shelter beds um which you've just seen jen uh display photos of there were improvements made to 13 shelters um the agency of human services will tell you that last year they provided housing permanent housing to 1300 romaners who'd experienced homelessness and that's far and away a record number some of that comes from the new homes that we put online some of it comes from the v-hip units that josh has talked with you about and then uh and this is a part of the value of having so many highly qualified non-profit developers working in partnership the local agency of human service contractors of 1248 apartments that came up for rent across the state last year they provided a third of them over 400 to people who'd been experiencing homelessness uh during the pandemic uh so a big part of the progress we've made has come from putting new units online and another part of the progress has been v-hip and then this last part has been um also that within the existing portfolio making more units available to folks um and as we said more more will grow in terms of the need and the problem and and josh really spoke to this commissioner hanford spoke to this in the 1980s we were increasing our housing stock 1.66 percent each year and the past five years were less than 0.2 0.18 so that's a huge drop in new housing production there's a lot of reasons for that but it really speaks to the shortage we're feeling long before the pandemic josh's agency did a needs assessment that projected the need for over 2500 apartments by 2025 the pandemic has brought new pressures to the housing market um and that's some of that it has been and you've all experienced this new new vermoners uh and whether they are new vermoners who are fleeing places because of covid or new afghan refugees we have an increase in the number of people there are more investors looking to invest in real estate today uh driving up the cost of housing uh there's more air and b b and b there's more conversion of single family homes to rentals which further restricts the rental market um and one of the problems that a housing economist will tell you is when people who could move into home ownership are stuck in the rental market and they're making 80 or 100 000 a year and they're competing with the vermoners we typically house half of whom have incomes below 22 000 a year guess who loses out in that competition it's low income vermoners uh there's an apartment just down the road for me in east callous village that three years ago was renting for 850 a month in front porch form it was advert an apartment and that building was advertised for 1500 a month uh last night um so we're seeing price spikes everywhere the low vacancy rates that we have give landlords the opportunity to raise rents that's a natural thing and so what we have seen over and over again despite the availability of lots of rental vouchers and rental assistance is that people are having are having a hard time finding their finding apartments despite the progress we've made there are still about 1300 households remaining temporarily in motels um and i think that the proposal that the governor has made really goes back to what you did with the fast track bill it sends us i can't tell you that all those funds will be needed and placed into use by june 30th this year but it's going to send a very important signal to people who are developing projects we're thinking about developing projects that dollars are available to support their projects so let's move on to the next slide um this just gives you a little bit of an idea of what the opportunity is we have a proposal in front of us for the drawing you see which is at a church and adjacent land near the haven in white river junction there's a municipal building that is slated for upper floor use as affordable housing and there's discussions up in newport about conversion of the old convent into affordable housing i could go around the state and tell you that christ church in montpillier wants to build 25 apartments on their site there are four sites being considered in waterbury mr chairman there are two sites available in bennington that could provide 60 units of housing there is a downtown site in hartford there are sites being looked at in middlebury so the signal you will send if you can you and the appropriators can support the governor's request will be a very positive one in terms of telling the development community uh more dollars are on the way and they should be continuing to gear up to produce more housing as quickly as we possibly can so let's move on to the next slide um you saw this at our presentation um when when you met with the with the other with it with the um human services committee but i think it's worth reiterating the successes are that housing is coming online quickly there is tremendous coordination uh and strategic collaboration in terms of capital subsidies and services um both among housing agencies with our friends at the state housing authority with vhfa with the department with the agency of human services and at the community level and we are seeing everyone across the state use coordinated entry to help fill those units that are targeted to people who've experienced homelessness um it is new for some of the private developers that we work with to house the homeless house people have experienced homelessness but they are um we are finding that they are willing to do that the price spikes that they are experiencing means that their projects don't go forward without some other assistance so the arpa sfr program is well underway there are big challenges and the biggest one which we spoke to the committee about is cost um and the cost of housing is frightening uh at this moment um i hope there'll be stability in the market um in the coming year uh the price of wood seems to have stabilized but other products are continue to be uh problematic the market conditions are still pointing toward displacement the example i just gave of a rental apartment in east callas village i think is just typical of what's going on all over the state we do need to strengthen service delivery and i think that's part of why you see the risk pool proposal in front of you um we need to enhance development capacity we did take some of the state general funds to provide um one-time assistance to the development community to uh that we work with on a regular basis to enhance the staffing but like every other sector of the economy finding qualified people right now is a challenge so the investments we made this fall will begin to bear fruit next spring summer and fall um we sprinted to do the crf work i'm obviously very proud of that work i really appreciate the support that you gave us uh to do that um but the pace of development is usually not that quick and can't be sustained uh we need to be moving to more of a mode of running a marathon than running a sprint and then last and important uh treasury guidance continues to be an issue in terms of the utilization of rpr sfr in conjunction with the low income housing tax credit and particularly the four percent tax credit it's something that we after we met we with you we had a meeting with treasury um and the lehi team and the sanders team are continuing to work on getting the treasury to alter their guidance uh and we're optimistic that ultimately that will change but it is a problem going forward i see there's at least one hand up so i'm happy to uh take a question or more than a question two hands up two hands up right now um representative browno then bloomly thank you uh and thank you gus and jen you know uh i can't i can't tell you how much that i personally appreciate what you folks do and the expedience in which these funds were um brought into the or put out in the field and the and the work that you've accomplished i did i was very happy to hear the one piece about the sacred heart con uh convent up in newport because i met with housing advocates up there and there's no shelter available currently in orleans county there's about 93 homeless people about 30 children involved in that um and um you know i heard from uh school uh superintendents or coordinators that have higher teachers who were unable to fulfill their contract because they couldn't find a place to live so i just wanted to point out that there does seem to be a void in orleans county uh for um uh for services and and um and housing uh initiatives and uh and i do appreciate the how many units would you anticipate being in the sacred heart convent gus um well we don't have a proposal in front of us yet i know it's something that rural edge is working on so i'm gonna check in with them and i will get you that answer representative triumphal great thank you thanks very much representative blueling hi gus thanks very much um for for all this information for the slides which will be really helpful um in uh reminding me about all the figures that you've quoted but also um uh for you know the the work you've done to try to address needs that we have been talking about over the last well 10 years um but now had the money to actually pursue i guess i'm wondering how the workforce shortage um in construction is affecting things and whether vhcb you know um is working with the administration i mean what are we doing to build um um that core of um of workers um that's a good question that i don't think i'm qualified to answer and you given your background you may be in a better position to answer but what i can tell you is that you know there are a lot of people that i have known for 35 years who used to pound nails who are putting their who are my age or even a little younger who are putting their uh air guns down and maybe they're building cabinets for people but they're stopping building houses and it is a real problem and crisis um genie morrisey one of our great builders said you know one of the good things out of this is people are making more money um after wages not going up for a long time um you know our job is not workforce development precisely um there are other parts of state government that are addressing this but clearly the shortage of people in the trades is one of the reasons that costs are going up it's not the only reason materials have been a real problem uh supply chain interruptions have been real problem um and the price of real estate is a real problem but but clearly the labor shortage affects everything and it also affects our nonprofit partners um one of our organizations lost their cfo to health care and the director said to me what used to be an 80 000 a year job probably has to now be a six-figure job um it is affecting people's abilities who are right on the front lines of this pandemic who do property management and that work is much more difficult in the face of the pandemic so so the workforce issues go to every piece of our work not just the trades work but that clearly has an impact on cost and on the availability of contractors um across the state and clearly um i probably should be sitting in a meeting with folks at the department of labor and other parts of state government that are dealing more with workforce um to address your question more fully well i mean it's something obviously that we i mean we we've seen the average age of construction workers go up nudge up and our investment in that next pipeline has um been pretty minimal and um so that's not necessarily for this committee to deal with but i just wanted to know your perspective on i mean what you're hearing from developers so thanks a bit about um thank you that was actually like kind of a perfect segue for my question um this one is a little bit less refined and more about i don't know an abstract thought question so if one of the issues that we're having right now especially uh recruiting from out of state is there's no work for folks to live right that's that's a huge barrier of getting access to younger qualified workers has there been any thought given to working in conjunction with construction outfits and possibly like working with them in in in a state agency possibly with dollars to build housing for construction workers so we can get the construction workers in to build more housing like i said this is kind of an out of the box thought but has anybody teased out an idea like that a partnership or a relationship um not that specifically there's been discussion and i think it's probably most uh pronounced in the upper valley where employers are talking about um you know and supporting the development of workforce housing and bringing resources uh to a loan fund i believe to help support housing development and being very active in the planning and permitting of housing but but but the idea you've just thrown out is one that we're happy to explore with partners um you know we are seeing because we border new york and new hampshire and massachusetts we are seeing subcontractors come in to work on projects from those other jurisdictions as well yeah correct and you see that very much so during the summer road construction season we're putting them up in or not we but like their employers are putting them up in hotels and whatnot seasonally and that's just kind of like been something that's existed for years if not decades you know i what i was thinking of and it's like i said this is like a totally out of the box idea of friend of mine who is um works at Rutland's economic development office uh josh Jerome we were kind of throwing some ideas at the wall about a week a week and a half ago and this is one of the things we're teasing out is like it kind of makes sense but it's kind of sounds insane but we're kind of living in an insane world right now so i just while we had everybody here i wanted to throw it on the table yeah that's a brain teaser i mean i think it doesn't matter what part of the economy you're looking at you know that we i'm sure you're among people talking about the nursing shortage um the the workforce shortage and i think this is part of why the governor is saying let's really go continue to go big on housing with arpa as a once in a lifetime opportunity for vermont is we we need more people in our workforce at at every level and and there aren't affordable places for people to live even piece of people making what we all have thought about is relatively good salaries okay cool hey that was that was all i wanted to bring up right now thank you for for letting me kind of have that thought done right um representative callacchi then howard and um then i want to be able to take a break after those questions uh thank you chair and uh hello to garson um welcome to our committee and gen of course and thank you for all your help with communicating with me off season on slide one if we could go to that slide um we we we had 51 home ownership units and that is with the shared equity program i believe is that correct yes that's correct okay and do we have the demographics of because part of the incentive in that program was to do substantial outreach to the bipod communities and so do we know of the 51 home ownership units the demographics of that um so what i can tell you is that so far we're um i think we've got pick up on 13 units and i'm going to have to get back to you on the demographics of the first 13 home buyers uh in that but i will do that and i know and we've talked about this before there's a 20 unit condominium under construction in downtown wanouski that is being marketed in particular to communities of color so that work is underway but i can't tell you the demographics today i can tell you that over the last five years the champlain housing trust reports that a quarter of the folks they've moved into home ownership um have been people of households of color um but i don't know that the exact number i just know that it's a quarter of all the households and in general we are seeing 30 or 40 turnovers in shared equity homes every year that are being recirculated as affordable homes in vermont okay and then uh could you i would i was talking to josh about this and i want to make sure i understand the revolving loan fund idea that was funded i think through general funds and is that what's funding this for 51 home ownership uh we're not using a revolving loan fund it's a direct uh subsidy that helps the home buyer um purchase a home what i can tell you is that it's moving a little bit more slowly than it has in the past and my staff report that there you know so it's it's generally a buyer initiated program they have a certain amount of subsidy to work with and they go find a home that fits their needs in conjunction with a local organization like cht that helps to keep it affordable over time um and in some cases people have simply been outbid in the marketplace which i think speaks to the the importance of permanent affordability that you know it just runs this market is showing how quickly affordability runs away from us um and we may have to deepen the subsidies to help people into home ownership i think there's also a need as we're doing with the downtown wanuski project and as we'd like to do um with creating more units both of the type josh talked about but also those that are permanently affordable one of the things we expect to recommend to our board in january is to fund the risk pool that uh josh spoke about briefly and that we will um and that mora will talk about more in a few minutes uh just to help get units built since the since the meltdown in 2008 what banks have done is to say we're not going to finance condo development unless you can show us 50 pre sales so the risk pool will help developers but uh more easily obtain financing by providing some insurance that of that the units will ultimately be sold or there'll be some way to repay those loans so that's a piece of this that we're going to work on with vhfa and i'll represent a plackie i wonder if i could help orient to another part of your question and that is that the um so the home ownership units here not funded through that special appropriation you referred to of the of the 70 million of state general funds you see here on this chart our board targeted three million of that specifically to shared equity home ownership and that's where um and it's expected to create 51 units 13 of which have been completed okay thank you and but this special appropriation is where now this is not in this slide no it did not come to us i don't i'm not honestly quite sure what special appropriation you're referring to i thought there was a five million dollar shared equity revolving loan fund i was going to be a million dollars a year for over five years that was in s 79 um oh so that hasn't happened okay i thank you i apologize for being unclear about that thank you very much and really thank you for your work it's incredible thank you all right representative Howard thank you um first of all welcome um guests and Jen it's so nice to see you um and uh to let you know that we are thrilled about the total block here in Rutland we need so much more of that um i just really wanted to comment on um what uh representative Byron had said i totally agreement with with uh his comment we have such a shortage of nurses and teachers police and firemen and women i i just wonder if if you're aware of any thoughts to offer perhaps free housing for a certain length of time um to these people um with like an option to buy um that's an idea worth exploring i'm not quite sure how we'd make it work but let us um brainstorm about that as we talk more about the home ownership proposals that uh we're all going to work on together um um clearly you know again we have a labor shortage that is affecting every part of our economy and if it's hard for a teacher a cop a firefighter to find housing those essential workers who stack the shelves in our grocery stores are also having a really hard time so and i just want to say it's great to see you it was great to see you at the opening of the old of the Lincoln Place the old school that was a wonderful project and i haven't seen representative Hango ask a question yet but i just did want to note that among the projects we'll bring to our board in january is a proposal from the Champlain Housing Trust for 15 units that will help to serve folks up in St. Albans so we're um who've been experiencing homelessness often fleeing domestic violence or other sorts of issues that have caused homelessness right thank you so so uh Gus and Jen before we take a break what how many slides do you have left for us i think there's a closing slide after this one this is the governor's uh recommendation okay which we and the language is is identical to what was passed before sure um all right so and we just here just as an example of a project we funded many years ago and there's room for a 24 unit building and cathedral square corporation who wants to do this has a waiting list of 850 and i think uh for this project in heinsberg the waiting list is over 100 so uh and the great thing you know we we do not do a lot of age restricted housing but it does have the impact of when people move in of freeing up other apartments and homes in the community so there is a need for this as well so with that we just want to thank the committee for your great support of our work and um really appreciate it and we will follow up with a couple of the questions you asked that we didn't have specific data on and get back to you now i appreciate you taking the time to fill us in on this on this particular request there is always more questions that come up with some of the facts that you you bring us but we'll save some of that for for the normal budgeting process and i think it's important to remember that that there will be a normal budgeting process where more funds will be requested for similar programs or for or for different ways of using um um general fund dollars also to to fund the building but this is um this is pretty clear about what the goals are for this 50 million dollars and um thank you for your time okay thank you thanks for having us today