 Good morning everyone. Thanks for being here today. It's good to be with Treasurer P. Check and many other partners to talk about a new important tool in our housing toolbox, which the Treasurer will discuss in a few minutes. It's no secret that Vermont faces significant challenges and housing is a big one. We've been focused on the lack of affordable housing since my first term in office. We worked with the legislature and created a $37 million housing bond, which leveraged hundreds of millions more in private investment, making it at the time the largest housing investment in state history. Then a few years later, when we first received federal dollars during the pandemic, I made it clear housing needs to be a top priority when we again work with the legislature to secure hundreds of millions of dollars more. In my time as governor, we've seen a historic level of housing construction and more new units coming online than we've seen in decades. But we know it's still nowhere near enough, especially considering the recent flooding. The initiative the Treasurer will talk about in a minute is another helpful step, which will support housing for critical income levels, affordable units, workforce housing, missing middle and upgrades for some flood impacted communities. As we make record investments, I've also made this point. This isn't just a money problem. We need more regulatory relief to I've been pushing for desperately needed reform, including to act 250 when I was in the Senate as Lieutenant Governor and as my time as governor for the last seven years. We did take some important steps this year with s 100. But we need more. But I want to thank those here, including legislators and housing partners who worked hard on that bill. As another example, when the legislature came back to session in June, I provided a list of suggestions, including moving up the implementation date for s 100. And almost all of them were accepted. Another helpful step forward. That goes to show when we focus on the issues that actually help them for monitors and not get distracted by politics, we can make a difference. Initiatives like the one that we're here to talk about today will continue to move the needle. And I want to thank the Treasurer and his team for their collaboration with mine and for his focus on this issue. If we all pull in the same direction on housing, we can continue to make progress. So with that, I'm a little bit commission. Sorry, Treasurer Pete. Oh, that's it. Thanks, Governor. Well, thank you, everybody. And thank you for being here this morning. You know, I think all of us in the room have a story to tell on housing, whether that story is for ourselves, a close family member, a friend, you know, who have recently struggled to find housing in Vermont. I know when I talk to businesses all across Vermont, they talk about housing being their number one challenge. They talk about how they'd like to expand their business. Now they would like to bring on new clients. But they can't do that because they can't find the workforce because their potential employees can't find housing. And it's the same story when you talk to organizations that provide critical services to our communities. Hospitals can hire nurses, schools can't hire teachers, first responders can't hire new recruits because all of those individuals are unable to find housing in the communities that they would like to serve. And as the governor pointed out, the July flooding has only exacerbated this problem for hundreds of remonters that are now trying to find permanent long term housing, which is unavailable. That's why I'm so excited to be able to make the announcement today. This $55.5 million investment that comes from our office will leverage an estimated $340 million of additional capital that will all together support over 1100 units of new housing throughout Vermont. I want to first thank our Treasurer's Office staff for their excellent work in expanding this program and identifying projects to support and making sure those projects were strong and the organizations that we are investing in have a strong financial track record as well. Vermonters can be rest assured that their tax money will be well protected while also earning a return and getting the economic impact of more housing throughout the state. I also want to thank the governor and his administration, specifically Josh Hanford, also Gus C. League, Sarah Waring, the LIAC committee for their help in identifying projects for us to invest in. It was critical to have their support and expertise as we wanted to find the best projects that would have the biggest impact. All of this money is coming out of our 10 percent in Vermont program. This is a program that the legislature established that allows the Treasurer to invest up to 10 percent of the state's cash on hand into economic development and job creation. We identified very early in our term that housing was the number one economic issue our state was facing. And I was glad to see that the local investment advisory committee that advises us on these matters agreed with us in that regard. Also, because we've had a tremendous increase in the amount of cash on hand as a state, we were able to expand this program significantly, which makes the capacity that we have today to make these critical investments. These investments are in the way of low interest loans to the projects and low interest loans at this moment in time with historically high interest rates are a critical way of continuing to support housing, even though interest rates make that a real challenge at the current moment. In terms of the projects that we are supporting, I'm also very excited about that in terms of a portfolio. You mentioned you heard from the governor that this is going to support housing across the entire spectrum. For example, the $50 million that will go to the Vermont Finance Housing Agency, 14 million will be set aside for traditional affordable housing. 14 million will be set aside for economic impact housing that will support employers that are looking to expand housing for their workforce. Six million will be set aside for small and emerging developers who are looking to serve underserved communities, including rural communities across Vermont. Six million will be set aside for flood resiliency and sustainability as we look to recover from the July flooding. Five million will be set aside for home ownership and another five million will be set aside specifically for manufactured homes, and we'll hear from more Collins in a minute with more details on their proposal. Additionally, we'll spend $5 million with the Vermont Economic Development Authority, which will go on to support a project in virgins that is a assisted living facility that will expand that capacity of that unit to 65 additional beds focused on low and moderate income seniors. So this is a critical investment as well. Not only will provide 65 more beds for a population that we need to support, but the hope is that it also has a ripple effect through the community as individuals and seniors that are looking for assisted living facilities, leave their homes and make them available for others, including young families. And then last a $500,000 investment with the Northern Forest Center to support a project in St. Johnsbury that will take a home that or take a building that at the moment is underutilized, has no apartments and very limited commercial space and transform it into a nine unit apartment building with two and three bedroom units, which are in critical need across the state, with also two commercial units as well. And this is a project and investment in right in downtown St. Johnsbury, which we're also very excited about. And beyond these economic benefits that we'll surely see from this investment, you know, we also know that one of the major social issues facing our status in terms of the lack of housing is its exacerbation of homelessness, challenges around serving effectively mental health and substance use disorder treatment. And that one of the main drivers of homelessness are a low vacancy rate and a high median rent in a particular community. And unfortunately, in Vermont, we have some of the lowest vacancy rates and some of the highest median rents in the country. So more housing is needed to make sure we can stabilize and bring down the cost of housing and solve these social issues as well in the long run. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to more Collins from the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. More. Hi, as the treasurer said, I'm more Collins. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. The HFA is almost a 50 year old organization that has existed with a mission of furthering affordable housing throughout the state of Vermont through supporting homeowners as well as renters. This award of $50 million from the 10% for Vermont program is going to support just over 1000 units of housing 1000 homes in Vermont. About two thirds of those will be dedicated to rental housing. That will be cover a range of rents and incomes of people served. So some of this will go to support traditional affordable rental housing, such as folks or places that can rent for about, I'll say $1100 for a two bedroom, I'm sorry, one bedroom apartment. And then in addition, there is also we've heard from employers and municipalities about the need to support market rate rental housing. So this would be a one bedroom apartment maybe renting for $2,500. And through the loan dollars that VHFA will be able to give to developers and builders, we hope that we can expand the housing market and expand more of these rental units. About 100 of those apartments we anticipate through our traditional affordable rental programs will serve those who are exiting homelessness. So it's a broad spectrum of who we're trying to address here. The other third of the units will go toward home ownership. That may be an expansion of a really successful middle income home ownership development program where we have been funding a VHFA using state resources, creating affordable starter homes. But a lot of that probably is also going to go to support infrastructure of home ownership. And the way it used to work back in the day many decades ago was that communities would often have the resources to put in the sewer, the water, the lighting, the sidewalks, all the infrastructure needed. And then developers would come and just build the homes and communities were welcoming of that development because they knew that those residents and those workers would revitalize that community. But budgets get tighter and times change. And now those infrastructure costs that used to be born by municipalities no longer can be paid for by those stretched thin budgets. And so those costs get pushed on to developers. And so by investing in that kind of infrastructure that can create an environment for housing development, we can make housing more affordable because those costs don't get pushed on to the buyers of those homes. Included in these investments are investments also in infrastructure and residents of manufactured home communities or mobile homes. They are a combination of home owners who often have rented lots in co-op and nonprofit housing communities. And so we plan to support them with this investment as well. The money is going to be adaptable and responsive to market needs. It might flex a bit between home ownership and rental and the types of loan products that we're talking about. But as the treasure laid out, we have six different investment areas in terms that we're looking at. But we need to be responsive. The flooding in July taught us that especially. So we are setting aside some of the funding so that we can make sure that we have flood resiliency and sustainable programs going forward. So VHFA's role here would be what it's been for the past 50 years. We will structure the programs that this money will fund. We'll take in the applications. We'll perform the due diligence. We'll do the underwriting and issue the loan commitments. We anticipate that this money will start to be deployed within the next few months. And that would all be in the ground being put to use over the next two to three years. The treasure laid out the funding and how it's going to support traditional affordable housing, market rate rentals, small and emerging developers doing small deals that can be the kind of infill development that we often see, especially in our rural areas. There's going to be support for home ownership, manufactured housing, and I mentioned the flood resiliency. So these investments are going to rely on and help us partner with banks and credit unions and lenders so that we can leverage other resources because 50 million dollars as much as I very much appreciate it is not going to solve our housing crisis right now. But we need more tools in the toolbox because this housing crisis is impacting all of us. It's impacting those who are trying to leave the Hotel Motel programs. It's impacting our flooded manufactured home residents. It's impacting renters who are trying to find a place to live, new Vermonters, homeowners who are and those trying to become homeowners and it's impacting employers and communities that are trying to grow. So we anticipate that we will be able to take this money and launch these programs very quickly utilizing a lot of the infrastructure that's already in place and are very excited about this opportunity. Next, I'd like to invite up the commissioner of housing, Josh Hanford. Thanks more. Thanks, Governor. Thanks, Treasury P-Check. I don't have a lot of remarks to add to this program other than just to say anytime we talk about more resources to support housing, it makes me happy and I was pleased to serve on the advisory panel that the treasurer in his office set up to review these projects and support all three of these these investments. It's going to result in a lot of new housing across a broad spectrum of need and a lot of creative new new tools and projects presented there. I want to say that right now I want to put another plug for an existing program for flood impacted renters, the BGAP, the Vermont business assistance grant program. Remind folks and then in the media here ask you to spread the word. Landlords are businesses. There is money available in this fund. It's still accepting applications and a rolling basis and this money can help repair your apartments to get people back into them if they've been damaged by the flood. So please, please submit your applications to that program. Reach out for help. The money's approved on a rolling basis and there's still funds available. With that, I'd just like to say, you know, I've been honored to be working with the housing partners up here and the governor and serving in this role and, you know, more housing opportunity, more housing choice is what Vermont's future needs. So thank you. Thank you, Josh. Before opening up to questions, I just wanted to remind everyone that this Saturday we'll be collecting flood related tires at the library granite museum from eight to four. So whether you're an individual municipality or business who has tires found from the floods, you can drop them off and we'll dispose them at no cost to you. Also, in the good news category, this Saturday at 7 a.m. AOT will be opening up another 20 mile stretch of the Memorial Valley rail trail from Cambridge to Wolcott. This will mean about 73 miles of the 93 mile rail trail will be fully open. So that's really good news. So with that, I'll open up to questions. Governor Commissioner Peechak said Vermonters can be assured their tax dollars will be well protected. Some of the state's new housing and evolving loan funds supported by our transfer tax payments have an extremely poor record of payback. How will you avoid that? Well, we'll do the best best we can, obviously. We want to make sure that the investments are safe. I will probably have Treasurer Peechak answer the rest of that, but we'll all work on this together. Yeah, thanks Governor. So that's a good question. I mean, obviously from our perspective, this pot of money has a lot of flexibility, but it needs to be paid back. That's our most important item. So the partners that we decide to partner with all have strong balance sheets. They're all providing guarantees for the projects. In some in one instance, at least the project itself will have a lien on it. So the projects will be well secured either from the balance sheets of the organizations or from the specific projects themselves. More, you said that your organization is going to be a worry in the loans. But it sounds like there's already some sense of very specific projects that are going to be getting this money. So I'm wondering how we can know with such confidence that these projects are going to be funded if you have yet to go through that process. Fair question. First off, I was invited to speak today, but I just want to point out that we have the executive director of VEDA here, as well as the Northern Forest Center who also were funded through this project. So those are some specific projects. Also, as you can imagine, in the past year, the affordable housing developments costs have gone up 34 percent. And so what we have is a pipeline of projects that are just waiting to fill in those gaps of funding so that they can move forward. These are oftentimes fully permitted or a designed and approved properties that because of cost escalation now they just need a little bit of money to move forward. So we're looking at that kind of pipeline to know example projects. Additionally, there are other projects that may be a little farther out and have some of their funding but not all of their funding and they're looking at needing more resources. And so that's part of the pipeline that we're considering. But then there's other projects that are new and emerging and we don't know yet. And so there is an open call to say that we're going to be publicly announcing this money and these programs. And so we do welcome. It's not that there is all the money is spoken for already. There is a bet and especially the treasure I think wisely encouraged us to set aside the six million for the flood response. Not knowing exactly how much the income the insurance proceeds are going to come up with or the FEMA resources are going to be able to provide. And so some of this money will be able to fill those gaps that are still unknown. So the confidence comes from the pipeline that we know about which is pretty robust as well as knowing that we the meeting to make this award was a public meeting held on Friday and over the weekend our office got six phone calls from developers and builders who had somehow heard about it before even this press conference. So I think that the interest is really there and we all know that the need is there. How did we land on the 1100 in terms of units like what went into that calculation. So I'll just you know part of it was an estimate from the Vermont Housing Finance Agency and then combined with the specific projects the Vita project that will add 65 beds and the Northern Forest Project that will add nine. So the thousand or so that more referenced is an estimate of what they think they'll be able to support not just with the 55 million but with the 55 million plus the hundreds of millions of additional capital that together will support the thousand units from the VHFA's estimate. You mentioned that these might be low interest loans. Do you have a sense of what that rate might be? Yeah for sure so it depends on the duration but for example a lot of these loans are less than 20 years so if you're taking a loan for 20 years the interest rate would be two percent if the loan were less than five years it would be one percent. So it's a flexible rate based on how long you're taking out the loan but that is the critical piece here is the low interest rate. That's the part that will help drive down the 30 percent plus increasing costs will be providing low-cost capital these projects. Go ahead Martin. If I may those interest rates that the Treasurer just quoted were the interest rates that VHFA will be paying on the state's deposits back to the Treasurer's Office but the actual interest rates that developers get could be very different for we're trying to blend in other public and private resources and so that's what the state is getting in terms of an interest rate but not necessarily what developers are getting. I would still anticipate that loans to developers would be below three to four percent though. So the Investment Advisory Committee signed off on this one sum of 50 million dollars and said here are the buckets we want that money allocated to and then now it's up to VHFA to decide where precisely that money will be ordered. Yeah I think that's right Peter. So we we asked for applications back in June you know we received 40 plus applications that all had various ways that they planned on investing the money. Some of them were direct projects some of them were projects that were indirect so like VHFA they would take money and then invest it directly. We you know in terms of the vast majority of the money in this pot focused on those entities that had the specific expertise to be able to find projects that would have the biggest impact and the biggest need but also to be able to leverage the additional funds to make the biggest impact. So that was the strategy for this first round of announcements. The LIAC committee does make recommendations ultimately it's the Treasurer's Office who's responsible for making the final decision on which projects get funded. And will there be some kind of butt-foretests more on where you'll have to determine that if not for this loan this project won't go forward? That is what we've done for the last 50 years. Yes we always look and try to braid together resources so while this 50 million dollars will support about a thousand homes if you do the math of a per unit investment that doesn't make affordable housing on its own. So what we need to do is we take we would take with that about 125 million of other public resources through the state or through the federal government as well as we anticipate about 175 million of private dollars and together this is going to support about 325 million dollars of economic activity which will support Vermont's communities. And so we always look to see how to best and most efficiently braid that money together. Where do we where can there be private investments like from employers we see more and more stepping up to want to contribute to housing where do we need our partners like the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board that receives state dollars and where does that come in and then where can other federal tax credits and other public programs also support this. It all comes together. And so that's why I think it's important to know that all these programs get very complicated very quickly. And so I appreciated Mr. Page's question about the repayment of these. These will be amortizing loans that do get paid back and VHFA is putting its balance sheet behind guaranteeing that repayment. But there are other types of public programs that have different models like zero percent silent second loans we call them where they are investments that are very much secure and still invested publicly but don't have that aren't built upon that same kind of repayment model that this program is built on. And when you're building affordable housing when you're building any kind of housing it's very expensive and so you have to layer all these things together to make it work overall. Treasure can you explain in layman's terms what is cash on hand why do we have more of it right now and why is it money we're able to loan out. Yeah for sure. So when this project when this program was originally created back in like 2014-2015 the state on average would have maybe two hundred three hundred four hundred million dollars sort of in its bank account if you will. So this is money that's been appropriated or will be appropriated in the next year but it has not yet been spent. So it's been it's either waiting to be spent or waiting to be appropriated. So since the pandemic there's been a dramatic increase our cash on hand this morning for example was over 2.1 billion and it generally has sat over two billion dollars for the last two years or so. A lot of that is federal money that has come in but also a lot of it has increased state revenues. The budgets are bigger in the last few years that means there's more money to appropriate and there's a longer time until it's spent. So we anticipate you know the cash on hand being pretty significant for the foreseeable future we don't know if it'll be two billion dollars you know that would mean that we would have even more money to invest but we took a conservative approach knowing that we could reasonably expand the program up to a hundred million dollars and have this money available today to do investment. Recently there were folks here in Vermont that were assessing our credit rating from that mistake and has has our housing crisis or the housing crunch has that had any effect on how some of the credit folks are looking at our state? Well you know whether it was our one-on-one meetings with the governor and myself with the credit rating agencies or it was the day that we spent in Vermont with them you know housing was like the number one issue when we talked about the venture capital investment that's been made in Vermont at Hula with a bunch of venture capital principles you know housing was the issue that came up time and again in terms of the issue holding back the businesses to grow even more. Similarly when we were talking about advanced manufacturing you know housing was the critical issue beta technologies global foundries they're all struggling with housing and even when we had a specific housing related discussion we invited employers that you know are trying to be creative and building their own housing for individuals so I think the message was quite clear that there's been a strong demand to move to Vermont that that demand continues but that were restrained in our growth by our housing stock so that's reflected in their rating reports when they say you know Vermont has seen demographic changes and that's a good thing but we want to see that continue we want to see that population continue to grow and get younger and have a younger workforce but that can only happen if we have more housing we still were rated you know double A plus which is the second highest rating and had you know really favorable visit with them overall oh senator I mean so welcome thank you I oh has the governor not spoken no no oh okay go ahead I thought there was there was a Q&A we would love to have you say a few words be like thank you um I just took every back road between here and basin harbor to be here so that doesn't mean you have to quote me but it's just really I would go anywhere in the state and stand with almost anybody and particularly our governor commissioner Hanford who is it's going to be a huge loss for the state when he leaves to push for more housing in the state and in fact I just left the Vermont lodging associations meeting where we heard from hotel owners and lodging facilities that they are using some of their hotel rooms and otherwise rooms that would go to tourists to house their own staff because they are simply the end of their capacity to hire people otherwise I thought I was coming at the tail end just to say that the legislature has a very unique role to play in making sure that this money that's being invested is actually well spent we need to get regulatory barriers and hurdles out of the way we need to make sure people have certainty and they know the timeline on which they can build a project because otherwise we lose a lot of money to litigation and to that uncertainty and to project delays and that is not a good use of taxpayer dollars that is not what people should be paying for and some of that burden goes on our lowest income earners who then end up having to pay more to access that housing or we're unable to build as much housing as we need given the great work of our affordable housing partners so that's all I wanted to say definitely didn't mean to step in front of the governor thought we were we were coming to the end and then I go on to the law school where they have an exhibit right now on the color of law and I teach around issues of an equity related to housing our gap in being able to afford your home is the largest contributor to the income gap and the wealth gap in this country and if someone can afford their first home they can find a place in vermont and they can gain a foothold in the economy and grow their family and be a strong contributing member of our community and that is what we should be fighting for thank you want to reiterate again thank you very much for coming as I said before S100 was a critical piece of this and it will be tremendously helpful in the future we need more regulatory reform but Senator Rahm Hensdale was an important partner in that passage of S100 so thank you very much for the questions yes so housing has been obviously a pretty big topic here today and we have Commissioner Ann for you we'll be stepping down at the end of September so I guess how could that possibly affect this program we're just housing going forward as it is a pretty pressing issue not to have a commissioner at the end of September to kind of overseeing everything well we we will have a commissioner we'll have an acting commissioner at this at this point in time and while we you know we rely on Josh a lot and he's been a great partner a great member of our team and we're going to miss him but he's not going far with him going to VLCT he will be helpful in that regard as well but we will we will do our best to backfill fill his shoes so to speak and we'll we'll continue to make sure that the housing is a primary focus for us would it work more like saying interim commissioner come when he's done or is there going to be somebody full-time it'll be interim Governor switching gears for a second as you know UBM health network recently wrote a letter to legislators highly critical of your appointees to the Green Mountain Care Board how do you respond to that criticism and do you think it's appropriate for these hospital officials to be writing such a letter near a critical budget vote well again we don't have oversight over the Green Mountain Care Board this was something the legislature I had put forward number probably maybe a decade ago and and I do I do appoint the members of the Board after they are fully vetted by another panel and I have confidence in their ability to to work their way through this process they're the ones who have oversight and this is critical I mean this will their their budgets will have an impact on Vermonters every day every day Vermonters and so they have a role to play and we'll see how it all that's out and but they're they're doing their job and switching gears again across the country there's debates going on politically about whether former President Donald Trump should be able to run again due to the 14th Amendment where do you weigh in on on that today? Yeah, I think we have to be careful in some respects we don't want to impose a restriction or for someone who is accused we'll see how that all works out and we'll let the courts figure that out as well but but obviously I'm not a supporter of former President Trump but at the same time I want to make sure that we continue to be democracy on the respects of the rule of law and and he is accused but he hasn't been he hasn't been tried and adjudicated thank you we've got a few folks on the phones then we can come back to the room we'll start with Keith the Ronald Harold I have no questions at this time thank you thank you Tim McQuiston Vermont Business Magazine Governor, there had been some talk about maybe re-instituting any COVID mask or other mitigation because of the increase over the summer it's kind of subsided as you know the last couple of weeks but is that something that you would that you could be on a table going forward if things get worse during the winter? We believe we went through the pandemic we've been through a number of flu seasons this COVID has I guess transformed into more of a flu-like symptom and and disease so we feel that people should take it upon themselves they know what to do to protect themselves if they choose to wear a mask they should that's what they should do if they want to and just take all the precautions we talked about during the pandemic you know get your get your flu shot get your your COVID shot your vaccinations wash your hands keep a keep a distance during during this season and and wear a mask if you choose to but but if there's talk of imposing a mask mandate that's not coming from us Are you playing to get the the new booster it's just about available now I am when I want to make sure that I can get I'd like to get them at the same time so I I need to weigh that out I think there's a and may wait for the next the next version right there you go Ed Barber Newport Daily Express Chris Roy Newport Daily Express Tom Davis Compass Vermont Thanks Jason Governor you started this press conference talking about the need for more regulatory help to help help us increase the speed in time of which we can increase the housing what are the top things that you would like to see accomplished at this ledger that would be added to S100 or a new bill Well we have had many suggestions we've we've put forward in legislation over the last seven years I would say it dust off almost any of them and I think that would be be helpful so we'll continue to work with the legislature I know Senator Rahm his sale has has said that this is a priority for their committee as well so we'll work together and try to to adopt something that works for everyone because you know when you look at what we're here for today the $50 million here the $37 million we put forth to begin with all of the money the hundreds of millions of dollars both of these programs did leverage and will leverage plus the $250 million that we put forth out of ARPA money and all of that will leverage it would be a travesty for us to be held up by regulatory reform that is just redundant and so trying to find ways to get through that redundancy is is something that's a priority for me but I believe for many legislators as well will you and your team be putting together a specific list for the legislature that you'd like to see them accomplish in a bill yes yes thank you appreciate it off of that last question Governor you and your team have been pushing for exemptions in downtowns in urban areas but as we know many of them are in the flood plain or next to rivers given this flood I mean is this making you rethink of where you'd like to see Act 250 exemptions well we've asked originally we had asked for exemptions throughout I think the final version it came down to some of the more downtown areas and I still think there's a role to play for the downtown areas not every downtown although many of them are in floodways but not all of them so and there's ways to mitigate that as well and those are the conversations we're going to have over the next few months both with FEMA and legislators and communities about how do we become more resilient how do we mitigate and I've you've heard me talk about this before but I think it's all and trying to create more storage capacity for some of the the rainfall that we see the tremendous storms that we've experienced and we're going to experience more in the future but how do we store that water while we wait it out and that's the key and I think that there is an opportunity here to do do just that but also create more housing at the same time do you see any of those 1,100 units that we're going to be creating do you see any of those being specifically earmarked for people who lost their hopes or in flood? I don't know or on the table right now but I also want to be honest that someone who may have been living in a manufactured home who didn't have a mortgage doesn't want alone probably in order to rebuild their home it may be necessary and if they're interested in that then we'd like to look at what may be possible but I go back to the idea of needing to braid together resources so that we can really meet the needs that they're at so yes that's on the table is something we're looking at but the actual trying to understand what individuals needs are and what their financial capacity is to pay back these loans is also going to have to be an important factor speaking of this place for monitors Mr. Roy can you give us a status updated on your agency's project related to that? Sure thank you very much good morning right now we had over 200 people who qualified for assistance from FEMA for direct housing those are people whose homes were either destroyed or they met the qualifications of at least $12 per square foot for damages to their home based upon that population FEMA has been calling them and asking them do they need assistance from us in finding housing for up to 18 months and we are at the point where I think we're around 60 some odd people have said yes we could use some assistance and so we're looking at different options and as we discussed previously there are three different options that we're looking at one is is direct house a lease where we find a location and release it for them the second is finding multi-family properties of at least three apartments to be able to repair and lease out and then the third option are the FEMA mobile homes that many are familiar with and so based upon the individual's desire and the location they're at we'll explore what works best for them if the answer is the the mobile home it will depend on do they have a property that they would like it placed on so if you were displaced from your home and you're in a flood plain that's not going to work but your brother has a location that's close by that you can place a unit on they would off that up we would research the spot and if it's suitable we would place it there and then the last option we're talking about is taking a look at group sites and I think many have heard that we're working with Montpelier for a potential site location for that I think there's a city council meeting this evening we'll discuss that if that looks like it's a probable location we'll move forward with exploring that as an option the biggest thing we understand is that winter is coming very quickly and we need to move with all speed so that those who have been displaced and need our help are placed in a location that they can use up to 18 months until they find a permanent solution thank you sir you might be willing to ask this governor do we have any sense of how many people have opted for buyouts we don't at this point in time that's a longer process I don't think that it would be a significant number now because it it takes a while it takes the the community they're in to to go along with that and it takes them deciding that's what they want to do and it has to be offered and so forth so I think that's going to be coming in the weeks and months ahead is that yes sir the whole true okay governor I I just wanted to double the checks and numbers that I believe are heard from from our colleagues building costs up 34 percent for affordable housing in the last year and the market rate for a one bedroom apartment $2,500 can I get done it? yep and um I mean all those what someone can afford is going to be based on their income so when I say $2,500 for a one bedroom apartment that's to say that if you look at the median of what people are earning in Vermont you know what they could afford renting a one bedroom apartment the increase in housing development costs are being driven by material increases labor shortages and I'd say construction delays and then it's taking longer to get housing built and therefore there's longer carrying costs and construction loans have to be out longer and all that and so we're seeing that as those the time drags on that it increased the cost overall of housing which is why I too will add my voice to the chorus of saying how important S 100 was and the partnership between the governor and the legislature to get that done because that should help speed up some of that process which can make housing more affordable apart from the flood why is it taking longer because of supply chain interruptions and material delays we know of a property we cut a ribbon on affordable property up in the islands where it's age restricted property so there's two elevators to serve the residents and they had to open the building with just one elevator in place and there's a elevator shaft that is covered up by locked utility closet door appearing because it took so long and the cost was so much to get that second elevator placed we're hearing nationally and across New England about long delays in electric transformers and how in New Hampshire I was just with my peer who said that they have more than one property that is fully built able to be occupied but there's no electricity in it because the transformers are taking so long to get to New England and so you add up these things that may not seem like big issues until they are big issues we can't open buildings if we don't have electricity and we can't serve folks especially those with physical needs if we don't have elevators and we could go on and on from there there's been some stabilizing of cost increases that we're starting to hear about but we are hoping that that continues but everyone I talk to and listen to no one is expecting a real drop in costs we're hoping that the escalation slows down Richard Wabi of the contractor says that legislatures recently passed law requiring licensure for contractors is slowing down the flood relief work he was quoted in Vermont business I think have been in the business is anything to that I think it's more just those workforce challenges that we face pre-pandemic pre-flood and still impact is greatly today so and that's why the housing is so important and you know it's like the old adage what came first the chicken or the egg I don't know the workforce challenge the crisis we face is impacted by the housing or vice versa and so we need those workers here to build the housing but the same time we need the housing to bring the workers in so we are choosing this path and making sure that we build the housing so that we can welcome more people in and we will be reaching out you know this there's an economy of scale when you have so much money going into housing when you add everything up is literally you know hundreds of millions if not a billion dollars of housing that we're contemplating here with all the leveraged assets so that brings opportunity and it may bring outside contractors from other states in to take advantage of the situation this morning down in Washington Senator Sanders and some other representatives senators introduce legislation to extend the child care stabilization act which throughout COVID held millions of parents and their children along hundreds of thousands of providers I guess in the past few years how is that national piece of legislation held for mom the funding is planned to run out on September 30th how could that impact the state going forward it has helped us out and it helped out you know a community that we desperately need we need more youth we we need more kids and for our schools and for for our economy and so we we I think this is going to be an important piece of that and it's been very helpful thank you all very much thank you all very much