 Thanks for being here this afternoon my name is Kevin Pounds I'm executive director of a new place and this is an exciting day for us as many of you know Friday just afternoon we closed on this property to Champlain and I think it's safe to say not just for us but for many people in the Chittenden homeless alliance for the city of Burlington and I think I could probably say I'm speaking for the mayor's office and city councilors too is that having a year round low barrier facility has been a priority and so not just for a new place but for a lot of people that are standing around here this is a big deal today I have notes here I've been known for going off my notes a little bit I'll try to stick with time but I think it's safe to say that for all of us COVID-19 has impacted us and that whether it's like us or a family member getting sick or the economics of it we felt that in some way I think we get it's also fair to say that there's certain groups in our community that have been hit especially hard and that especially includes the people in our our neighbors who are without homes and one thing I love about Burlington is that there is an ethos here of what happens to one of us impacts all of us we may not always live that out perfectly but I really do believe this to be true of my neighbors I'm a Burlington resident myself is that when something happens to one person in our community the rest of the community feels that too tries to figure out hey what can we do about that issue and the reason I think this is really important it's having this year-round low barrier facility here is that it's a very practical way of saying because some of our most vulnerable neighbors in a very practical way that you matter about thought that goes through my head a lot and I and I'm not an extremely nostalgic person but I do care about history and one of the reasons I came to work at a new place several years ago was because of the history in 1982 there was a small group of people for local congregations that saw the growing numbers of their neighbors that becoming homeless and they had this poor belief that God cared about these people and if I cared about them that they should care about me do something about it the data stood out to me about the about this group of people and I've met some of them over the years is they weren't social work professionals they were just people who care and so they started a nonprofit they raised money they bought what it historically been the liquor store on North Street and reimagined it as a sober shelter and so almost every week to go that at some point during the week like I played through that in my head and what it reminds me of is when we're looking at our most vulnerable neighbors we look at our neighbors they're experiencing homelessness if we're going to help them it's going to require taking risks and it's going to require making sacrifices and so there's a lot of people around here today who have taken risks and made sacrifices to make that possible and so I wanted to just take a second and just think some people that have been a part of that team today because this doesn't happen to people I get to be the talking head for what a lot of other people do to make things happen other than Michael Riley he's not here he's the owner of sampling and associates who sold us and when I approached him a couple of months ago I'm he didn't know me from anyone and I told him what we were thinking about doing and said hey would you be even willing to have a conversation with me and one of our board members David McKay and he did and within a couple of weeks we were working on a purchase and sell agreement that just doesn't happen right unless somebody has a heart for what we want to do here I want to say a big big thank you to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board their director Gus is here he's gonna be speaking in just a minute for believing in this project and providing much needed federal coronavirus relief funds I mean you this day doing a project like this require serious money and I can't say thank you enough to them for believing in the project and what its mission is I want to say a big thank you to Cindy Reed from Cathedral Square she's somewhere nearby right there Cindy's been doing a lot of the heavy lifting on this project she's director of development for Cathedral Square all this construction she helped us come up with the game plan right and so she's doing a lot of things behind the scenes but I would be going nuts if she wasn't there on the other end of phone calls and emails constantly Mark Salmon with Ryan and Morrissey I mean you're gonna see their stuff around here they do a lot of stuff in the city and they're doing all kinds of things seen and unseen to get this project out up and running by December 1st Bob Duncan with Duncan was new ski architecture I want to think our attorney over topic is not here with Langrack's very involved and I want to say like a big thank you one thing we appreciate a lot is our partnership with the city of Burlington year ago when we agreed to take this on I remember one of the city counselors came to meet with us the mayor's office came to meet with us and said this was a priority and none of us knew that COVID-19 was gonna the mayor didn't know I was gonna ask him to do a sit-in at North Beach campground so we could open up RVs and I told him that we weren't gonna require him to come here so we could get this open in time but we're thankful that it is opening on time but across just over these this last year the city has been incredibly supportive since day one and that goes from the city council a couple weeks ago the city council unanimously passed emergency resolution on a personal level I feel that to be Joe Shannon spirited like making sure that that city council came forward I'm gonna do a shout-out to my two city counselors because they're my friends and they're my city council so really thankful to Franklin Polino and my good friend Ali Jane for just being good friends and listening to me vent when I'm trying to figure things out and I thank you for the mayor for being here easy to be speaking this because I know this has been a long-term passion project that is to see this happen and I also want to say thank you to one person that is never in the spotlight with the city and she's named me for saying this her name is Grace Sifo and she's assistant director for CEDO and she's one of those people that like will never be behind a microphone but there's all kinds of things to make sure projects happen right and also figure out how to make them happen so thank you Grace yeah most of all I want to think a handful of people here that I get to be the talking head for a lot and that's new places for online staff I couldn't ask all of them to be here today because they're working but I did ask for five of them to be here and they work tirelessly to provide the support of shelter environment and a basement in our bees and tents all while navigating the challenges of COVID and right now they're revving up to get this place open by December 1st so I actually invited five to be here this afternoon Heather Busch our shelter coordinator David, Laney, Nick, and Ben and one reason I wanted to ask them to be here is that you can applaud them. My wife and children around the dinner table the other day it's nice to do that then I know it's true. That if I or them were ever to hit rock bottom and be in need those five people are there exactly who I would want them to encounter right and so I just want to ask this for the reporters here if you want to interview somebody when this is over don't interview me interview with them right and they can tell you what what makes a new place to why we serve the people we serve as we all know we're only good as the team around us so I just want to thank the people are going to be speaking up here I think you buy back there I want to thank our board members that are here today to the several new board members there around the crowd thank you for playing a part in making this a reality and we're looking forward to being able to open this December 1st and serve 50 of our neighbors who have been experiencing homelessness so thank you good afternoon everybody Kevin thank you for your leadership throughout this journey that really did begin about a year ago with a new place taking over for I think it was the time the fifth year of operations of the low barrier shelter down I'm gonna use the avenue and yeah none of us knew what the next 12 months had in store with this facility your resilience and your team's resilience throughout this has been remarkable and we definitely wouldn't be standing here today without the passion that you have for this work and the energy your whole team has brought this I am you know I remember Kevin's joke about the sit-in he's talking about the day that we opened the after having under an emergency basis closed that facility on when he was he Avenue it wasn't really clear where the 20 people who were living that facility would go and a remarkably quick period of time a new place the state DCF and the city work together and hatch this idea of leasing RVs and so that each individual could have their own RV and not be in this crowded facility on New Ski Avenue anymore and the plan was coming together so quickly that we got to North Beach and the agreement hadn't been completed yet and night was funneling and it was it wasn't quite clear if the agreement would get done in time for people move in that night and and they did and I do remember which it was one of the important hopeful moments in those early scary days of this pandemic I think that sort of captured the sense that we're all in this together as a community and that no one was gonna get left behind and that we were gonna find a way to protect everyone no matter what the situation was it was it was it was a day that felt different than you know we had sort of broken business as usual and that we were able to get things done that we wouldn't be able to get done in normal times and I definitely remember hoping that that would lead to today that that would lead to us being able to finally break through this many year running challenge of having a year-round low barrier facility I wasn't sure we would because it had been it had been a long and challenging road and I just want to quickly recap the history of what brought us today we it's not that long ago that there was not a consensus the low barrier facilities made sense at all even in the winter and up until 2014 we had people die frequently during the winter I think just about every winter there used to be an exposure death with someone who was stuck outside they didn't have a place to go and despite that there has been a many year running debate about whether there should be some kind of low barrier option in the winter finally in 2014 the CVO with the support of the city with the support of my administration we decided we'd have a pilot we were able to use the Ethan Allen facility the club there that was had just been decommissioned as a plug and that was where we had this first sort of experiment and it was clear immediately that this was a much needed facility it was clear immediately that it didn't create the kind of problems that many people were concerned would be created by a low barrier facility so by the next spring spring of 2015 I actually put in my state of the city that March that we needed to find a way to continue to have this this winter facility and we have every winter since there has been a low barrier facility first run again by CVO yo that was taken on my cots then it was the community health centers of Burlington ran up very well for three years and then this last year a new place took it over by 2017 it was clear to me and some others that this really need to become a year-round facility that the lack of a year-round low barrier facility was a disservice to people living in homelessness they're chronically homeless and it was something that the lack of the facility created challenges for the community and so in the state of the city that year 2017 I said let's find a way to make this a year-round facility the facility that opened in 2017 did stay in commission longer and lasted instead of closing in April lasted until June in part because the city started budgeting local dollars which generally way kind of responsibilities are divided in this state the state pays for social services municipalities don't we made an exception to that with this with this low barrier facility we started putting local dollars in and every year since the city council has supported that and we have continued to have local dollars but still we couldn't break through and find a way that the expense turned out to be much more than I've been hoped for we couldn't find a way to actually turn it into a year-round facility until 2020 and until this this opportunity created some with with the COVID and with these additional federal dollars available for a facility like this so you know I just want to why was this so hard and and I you know I've come to think the reason it's so hard is the need for a facility like this in some ways clashes with our sense of who we are as Vermont and who we want to be we believe we're a small compassionate place that you know that doesn't have chronic homelessness issue and that is an ideal that I very much believe in and this administration believes in and we've worked towards that ideal to realize that ideal on many fronts we repurposed some of the federal dollars that we get as a community towards a housing first model that prioritizes chronically homeless individuals we have worked on many fronts to create as much housing as we can over the last eight years because we know that the lack of a supply of housing is one of the drivers of homelessness it's not the only driver of homelessness though there are many other issues and one of them being opioid use which has been one of the reasons we that issue so hard so we agree I agree that this Vermont should aspire and work towards being a place that does not have a chronic homelessness issue and we have made in some by some measure some progress towards that and yet chronic homelessness does exist here in Vermont it does exist here in County and in Burlington and today's event is a big step towards recognizing that and facing our challenges head-on and I'm so thankful to whole number of people for getting us to this important day and I am going to just take the liberty to thank a few of them directly and again I want to say thank you to Kevin and and his his team a new place almost alone when the city went to the house the homelessness alliance in 2017 it said we got to find a way to make this a year-round facility a new place heard that call and they stepped up and I'm so appreciative for the partnership I want to thank the city team in addition to grace you did a great job with this the whole CEDO team was involved Luke and will also worked on this project part the city attorney's office had to grapple with a number of last-minute sort of emergency issues and and work through that our permanent inspections office was a part of making this happen and I'm sure if there's anyone here today from Parks, Recreation and Waterfront that team really back on that March day when the North Beach campground was repurposed worked extremely hard to re-envision that campground for that use and make it happen I want I see we got a number of city councillors here today it's awesome to see to be joined by councillor Chang and councillor Carpenter and councillor Shannon this year is going to say a couple words in a moment the council had to pass an emergency regulation a few weeks ago as well as continuously budget funds towards these low barrier this low barrier facility and some challenging budget times very thankful for the partnership with council and in particular I want to thank that the South End councillors and the neighbors immediately around here and maybe some of them are with us today I'm not sure you know often projects like this die because the neighbors are these are often you know not popular facilities I am so thankful that the community here and the councillors in the South End understood that this was a critical community need understood that some of the fears about this facility would would not be realized that this is gonna be a freshly managed excellent facility and make sure that we're moving forward with these plans and I want to thank Cindy Reed and Cathedral Square for the critical role that they stepped into in a real time crunch bringing their experience and their capacity to bear here and I want to say a huge thanks to Gus Celeg and the whole team at BHCB you know Gus is really I think many of us think of Gus as sort of a Vermont treasure he's one of the things that makes this state such an exceptional place and he is a rare combination of idealist and pragmatist and when this effort came very close to dying after another South End concept did not did not get over the finish line Gus gave outstanding advice and wisdom really on how to in a very short period of time come back with another concept and get us to Dan and you know this is the thing I've worked on most directly most with Gus and I'm so thankful for the partnership Gus and what you did get us to today so thank you everyone else I'm sure I've left some people off but what a great day thank you so I've got Celeg on the director for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board thank you for your kind words and what a great day to be together and thanks for the hockey stick that's wonderful you know this feels like a very to me very dystopian time all in masks and this dystopian time has challenged us to understand who really are essential workers what the ravages of economic inequality and racial inequality really mean why housing has to be seen as part of health care we're here today for lots of reasons and early on Air Hard Maka and the Affordable Housing Coalition Champlain Housing Trust and our friends at Evermore said to the state of Vermont everything you want to do on housing is really important but if you don't add to the supply and use some of the more than billion dollars that Pat Lee Lady got for every small state country you don't need some of that money to add to the supply there's going to be a big miss and then your legislative leaders including Senator Sorotkin, Senator Ash, Senator Kitchell, Tom Stevens, Mitzi Johnson all said yeah that's really important we're going to get it done what that meant was that we could make a grant of two and a half million dollars for the purchase and rehabilitation of this facility this happened because of a new place and the city's tenacity and its heart it happened because the first project couldn't quite get there Michael Monty told me that he thought that this property could be won and it also happened because Kim Fitzgerald when I called said yeah I will turn Cindy Reed-Moose to support him and get an incredible amount of work done both to get a deal signed and to get the rehab done by the CRF deadline in December so thank you so much. It would be very very brief I want to thank Jen Holler, policy director for all those legislators, our housing staff who are not here as I was driving up today there's too much bad news and I turned the news off and turned on some music and a friend of mine played the Bluegrass Band, the Bluegrass Gospel Project and they have a song called Heaven and it's a meditation about whether there's heaven on or heaven on and there's a line in it that asks will there be hope for the homeless, will there be homes for the homeless, will there be homes for the homeless. Today all of you in the city and new council members have all said with your hearts yes there's going to be hope and yes there are going to be homes. Thank you so much. Shout Cindy. I can develop but I have a hard time speaking loud so thank you all for being here today. Thank you so much Kevin and the new and all the staff and the new board members. Great leadership and PHCB's funding of this incredible project. As Gus highlighted the inequities that we're dealing with we have an absolute housing crisis in our state. Affordability is a major problem. Get through no squares working on total employment housing and in the meantime we need a first stop and a new is wonderful at providing the first step for folks to love thinking that and knowing that 50 people will be here soon. And services and caring staff to help them develop their next steps and how they can lead their lives with dignity. So the thing that Cathedral Square and the new one of the reasons why we play well together is we very compassionately believe and treat a massive amount of improvements in a really short period of time about opening the doors. Thank you Cindy and thank you to everybody who's spoken before me because these are all the people in our community that are really getting things done. And I think what we're seeing here today is our village because it does take a village to take care of everybody in that village. I first encountered a new place. I appreciated your history Kevin because I first encountered a new place when I was a new city councilor and I was introduced to it by Republican representative George Chabot invited us for a tour. And it was myself, the rest of city councilor Phil Fiermonti and George Chabot and that's where I learned about their values for wraparound services and lifting people up. Their methods work. They take care of people. And I also really appreciate the work of the mayor and the administration. The administration isn't what gets things done. It's people willing to step up with creative solutions and find the money to do it. And that's what this administration has done that nobody else could do or at least nobody else has done. And as mayor said, this is not the model in this state. The city of Burlington is stepping up because we believe that housing is a human right. And I also want to speak to really the human side of this because mostly we're talking about all the people that have come together to make it happen which is, you know, thank goodness that they have. And it's only been with real intelligence and persistence. And I will also tell you that Vermont Housing Conservation Board is an amazing group of people. They are, they challenge ideas. They come from different perspectives. They don't just say yes. And were it not for a little resistance from them, we probably, we would not be here today. But it was that challenge combined with a commitment to still getting to the goal and the help of Gus to get there and Michael and Kevin to locate the site to negotiate the deal. But ultimately we're here because housing is a human right because we believe in that as a community. And I want to thank the neighbors here that have approached this project in that way. And a couple of those neighbors, actually the closest butters to this project are here today to support the project. And I want to thank Val Carzello and Will Ormondo. Being part of the village, Will has taken my whiny dog for a walk. But really thank everybody who has come together because this is a place where people will feel the community's love, where they can get well, where they can get rest, where they can lay their heads down when they have a migraine headache and they can't function anymore. This is a place to call home for now and lift people up. And so thank you so much to everyone here who's made this possible. And the south end welcomes a new place to the Champlain Inn. Thank you. That is, I think that's a fair program. I think the members of the media have questions. Kevin and I, others we have to do to try to answer them. Question. It was a $2.5 million grant. Does that cover the entire cost of purchasing the property? Kevin, maybe your guess. It covers the entire cost of purchase. A new is raising money in addition to the grants to help with the rehab. Some of the money is to also go into the rehab that can be done by the CRF. Kevin, I don't know if you want to speak to how much additional it can raise. There's the cost of actually getting this up and running, which is, you know, the purchase of the building and the rehab. So the CRF funds, the CRF funds cover the majority of that. As far as like annual operations, and that comes from a mix of like, you know, state funding through a hop grant. The city supports us, you know, with annual money too. And then we private fund raise a lot too. Historically, until probably a year ago, realistically, a new place was 100% privately funded. So we've got a pretty, all I can say is we're really, really thankful for community support. Because that's why we're still around since 1982, because it's mainly our neighbors in Chippin County that really support our operations. Sorry, the renovations, we still have the fund raised before the renovation. Well, the CRF funds are covering the large chunk of the renovations. How much money does that cost? I mean, I think that this goes back to something I said earlier. I think that if you're going to help people that are most vulnerable in your community, it's going to require taking risks and making sacrifices. Or you're just never going to do it. You're just going to have to excuse the people. What's the portion or how much money is the city contributing to the project right now? And the ongoing family like it was a part of the budget going forward. Yes, we've had an appropriation in our budget since I think the 2018 budget was the first that we had. We've budgeted $60,000 a year, every year since then. It was enough to expand the months of operation beyond what the state paid for. So during cold weather months, there is a structural funding source for this kind of service because there may be others that know the history, it better be. But basically the state takes responsibility for ensuring people have this emergency low temperature hotel program. The state has actually found it more efficient to fund during the winter months this facility than to put additional hotel vouchers for that. The UVM Medical Center has also been a financial contributor during winter months. During the challenge always has been since we've been trying to make this a year-round facility is the additional expense involved in becoming a year-round operation. The city has been budgeting again $60,000 a year. We're definitely committed. I'm committed at least budgets that I'm responsible will have at least that amount going forward. I think it may well be as this budget is finalized there may be a need for a modest increase on that in future budget years. And I'm open to that and I'm open to taking that to the council. We are expanding, the voters last spring expanded the housing trust fund almost doubled it and this is an expense that gives us additional capacity for making investments like this going forward. Actually state legislature just approved that in the last month or so. So in future budget years that will be an additional source. I also think I know there are other municipalities that supported this. The city of South Burlington and Colchester also saw the need for a facility like this. This may be something that we can get some partnership for others in the future. The HCB didn't approve this until they had assurances that there would be not all the details have been sorted out but they were confident that enough of them are sorted out that will make this work going forward. And the city is definitely going to be a part of filling the gap. Okay, is there a low barrier option for people at homes right now? So you want to speak to that Kevin in terms of what's happening right now? The question is is there a low barrier option right now and what's happening to people right now until December 1st? I mean I think that it's common knowledge that a lot of people are staying in hotels right now and so that's probably the best low barrier option. I mean I think that's why we're doing this is to make sure that there is like a year-round ongoing and sustainable option. Low barrier option. So how many days is the question coming up? I'll just say we fill the weight of getting this open by December 1st. We fully fill the weight that like it's a gap and every year we started running low barrier facility last winter. Got it up and running by November 1st that's always the goal. Obviously you know you can see right now it's like you know we bought it on Friday. The contractor showed up this morning and so it looks like I mean you know it's going to be up and running by December 1st. But that's a month later than we normally do so yeah we want to get it as quickly as possible for sure. I'm sure a little bit of guidelines play into things you can fill out in bed series and you know I don't know if there's some other beds in the room or something like that. Yeah so when we first came and checked out the facility, David McKay, he's one of our board members right there with a cool looking hat. We came up here with a measuring tape right? And just I mean we really did to figure out like okay we went old school on it right just like how far can you space the beds? Like how many people can you get you know and so there's 33 units maybe able to get even yeah anyway there's 33 units. And we probably technically could have gotten more than 15 but we just felt like after measuring it all out looking at our staffing structure or anything like that. Yeah I mean so yeah there's some of the rooms are going to be private some of them are going to be semi private because we do have people they're in the same class and we kind of double off on some of the rooms. Some of the rooms might have a quarantining requirement but people do want to stay. Will there be a quarantining requirement or anything like that? Like the quarantine excuse me a quarantining requirement is what we said. Well I mean like this with every shelter you know with like a lot of facilities serving people experiencing homelessness like we have to have like space for isolation right so if somebody is symptomatic. The great thing about this is people are already in their own room right for semi private rooms so that takes away kind of the guessing game on that. And I think it's also great that there's a COVID recovery site up on Ellison Road at the Ohum Hotel if somebody is COVID positive we already have a process in place for people to go there. And so I mean and they do a great job there of making sure people are negative before they return to the general population too. And I have to say like a lot of that I know there's not other agencies here. Cathedral Square is another agency as part of that. Part of the reason the COVID recovery site works is because of the Chittenden Homeless Alliance we all play in the same sandbox really well. I mean that's the reason things like that like this are happening is I think there's a lot of support for organizations to figure out how to work out these problems. Question for homeless people who use drugs or drink alcohol will they be allowed here and if so will there be like supervision or medical staff here? So this is low barrier which means there's no sobriety requirements right. So that's what part of what it means. We always have 24-7. If there's clients or guests on site we're on site. So that will be our we're not medical staff. We partner with community health centers in Burlington with their self-saved Harvard Clinic. So usually there's something medically related that too comes on site to assist us. So one of the goals always has been of this low barrier facilities is that there would be services provided. Basically there are people staying in this facility that have become the operators do everything that they could to help those individuals get access to whatever services would help them. Get to a different place in life whether that's permanent housing or job or medically assisted treatment. That has always been a goal of these low barrier facilities going back to when we first created one in 2014. I would say it's a goal that we've had limited success with. There definitely have been some success stories but one of the benefits that we're hopeful about about there being a year round facility. A facility that isn't opening and closing every six months that has a great deal of staff turnover as a result of being a seasonal facility. Is that the wraparound services provided to people staying in this facility should be far superior to what we've been able to provide in the past facilities. They know that's more new places and it's helping the city is really interested in doing everything we can to support as well. Thank you. It works. I mean, GA is being recognized here but it's had other points to our shelter coordinator. Before we brought her on staff a year ago I used to refer to her as a social worker ninja. She was working for the state of Marlborough Health Clinic before coming on staff with us. I think that gives me a lot of confidence that when people come here they're getting a new start and we're going to connect them. You can't force people to say yes to services but this allows us to bring services to people and it greatly enhances the chance they're going to say yes. I think part of it is also just people are in a low barrier environment because a lot of times there's a lack of relationships in their life. They don't have people they trust. One reason I ask these five people to be here is they're good at building trust and that's the first step for people saying yes to services. There's no quick fix to this. We're really encouraged by just having a space where somebody can walk across the parking lot and meet with a case manager right there. That's a game changer. Thank you. I think you understand the scoring but just to be clear, this is that effort that we want some reporting around. This is the culmination of that effort and this is the facility it's having as opposed to that original concept of this tiny home concept there. I would say in general one of the reasons that this is a really important facility is because in the past we know that when the winter morning facility is closed that has meant that a significant number of people have headed out into the woods. These interstitial spaces around the city and set up these makeshift encampments and that's one of the places we've seen that happen frequently down on Sears Lane. One of the very positive elements of this facility is that a lot of people who are staying in encampments like that don't want to be there. They would much prefer to have a roof over their head, they would much prefer to be in some kind of low barrier facility and one that serves them simply hasn't existed. So yeah, I absolutely think that this is a tool that we haven't had in the past for helping serve people find themselves at Sears Lane. We know not everyone is going to want to avail themselves of this type of service but many of the people we know from having talked directly with them and worked with many people in encampments over the years that many of them would be more than happy to be here at the Champlain if it had existed and it will exist going forward. I'm happy to stick around if people do have more but why don't we let folks go. Thank you all for coming out and being part of this important day.