 unmute yourself when I get you, when I give you a call to go ahead and speak. So welcome everybody, this is Tuesday, May 5th, and we are picking up our conversation on housing transition from getting homeless, almost 1800 Vermonters who needed a place to stay as of the beginning of the emergency period. They've been housed in different ways across the state, mostly in hotel rooms, but we are trying to wrap our heads around what the transition might be for moving these folks and their families, these households as they were termed last week into different housing once the emergency period is over. I don't think that we want to invite people to just join, go out onto the streets unless they want to absolutely, but I think we need to be working on moving folks from temporary housing to something that's more permanent. So that's what this kind of session will be about, just to get an update on some of the federal information and how it translates locally, and we'll get that from Earhart. And as a follow-up to S333 and as a conversation about the rental issues, whether it's rental assistance or rental arrearages, we asked Gene Murray from Vermont Legal Aid to join us. And we have Patrick Gallagher from Pathways, which is one of the several different organizations who use a housing first type model. We've heard from Pathways earlier this year, and we will hear from him today to hear where they are in the crisis and how they're working and what they're looking to do and what opportunities may be ahead of us. So with that, I think we will get right to it. So Earhart, if you would like to unmute yourself, welcome to General Housing and Military Affairs. And if you could, just like I said, start by giving us a breakdown on some of the work that you've been doing in terms of monitoring the funding that's available and what your thoughts on are, how we can use some of the $1.25 billion, et cetera. That would be great. Well, thank you, Representative Stevens. How's my voice coming across? I've had some difficulties with the audio on my laptop, so I just wanted to check in and see if it's coming out, if I'm coming across. I think if you could turn your volume down a little bit, and I'm going to turn mine down, you're coming out a little, you're coming out, I mean, I don't know how I sound, but you're coming out like an AM radio a little bit. It's a little tinny. That's too low. Maybe I'll just try to stay a little further away from the laptop, because I do have a booming voice, as I think some of you know. So if it gets too distorted, we'll let you know. But right now, we can understand you. Okay, great. Well, thank you, and thanks for the opportunity and good morning, everybody. Interesting conversation a few moments ago about the F-35s. My house is probably the first in line here when they come across, and it's thunderous. So for the record, my name is Erhard Madka, I'm representing the Vermont Global Housing College this morning. I want to start off by thanking you all for all of your good work on the on S-333, the addiction and foreclosure moratorium bill, which has been our highest priority. And obviously you'd shout out to also to Gene and folks at Vermont Legal Aid and Angela Zikowski at the Apartment Owners Association, everyone who's worked on this. As you may know, it passed the Senate this morning, final passage and hopefully on its way to the governor's desk fairly soon. So congratulations and thank you for your good work. I also wanted to give out a huge shout out to AHS, to Commissioner Schatz, his team at DCF, especially Sara Phillips at OEO, who has just done amazing, they've all done amazing work standing up the response for homeless and vulnerable for moderates to the pandemic. Also, obviously our housing and homeless service providers and our community action agencies, all of whom are on the front lines ourselves. We've been blessed to receive kind of unexpected $100,000 grant from our National Income Housing Coalition, which we got last week and quickly turned around and made many grants to 20 of our homeless shelters and to the five cap agencies and pathways around the state to help with in a small way with their response to COVID-19. So I will say that I've been on countless hours of national calls over the last few weeks and I've heard what other states are doing. And I have to say, knowing what we have done in the state of Vermont through our housing and homeless networking partnership with state government and with you all, it's pretty amazing. It's not, we're not exceptional because there are other states that have responded incredibly well to this emergency for their homeless and vulnerable for moderates, but there are other states that have not responded well at all. And it just makes me really proud to be a Vermonter and see what government, true government leadership can do in cooperation with the nonprofit sector and with communities and volunteers. So while the last six weeks have brought a huge sea change to all of our lives and really to the entire world, I just want to start by reminding you that the solutions to homelessness and our affordable housing problems essentially remain the same and are now more important than ever. It is, I think you've heard me say before, it's not rocket science. We need, continue to need affordable housing, rental assistance and supportive services, the proverbial three legs of the three-legged school of housing investments for low-income homeless and for moderates and other vulnerable for moderates. What the pandemic has shown is just how deficient our system has been all along, and it just really underlines that. So I just want to ground you all back into the solutions that we've been talking about for years. They're all still there and they're all still needed just now through the filter of this extraordinary circumstance. Even before the stay safe at home order came, the system was completely overstressed and unsustainable. Shelters were always full. Shelter stays were long. The last couple of years we've had the longest average shelter stays over 50 days. Sometimes for some shelter guests it could be nine months. It could be over a year simply because there are not enough subsidies. There's for folks who are very low income. There is not enough affordable housing for people to move to and not enough supportive services for those that need them to succeed. Just want to take the opportunity to remind you about the roadmap to end homelessness which was commissioned by the General Assembly and paid for in large part by the General Assembly five years ago. It showed us the numbers and the investments that we need to make. I know you know this but I think it's just really important to remind that in these extraordinary circumstances the recommendations of that roadmap are still very valid, very viable, and unfortunately we just lack the political will to raise the resources that was needed. We could have by now if we had been able to follow the recommendations of the roadmap we could have come close to ending homelessness in Vermont by by now. So in the in the some precedent of time we find ourselves in a unique position over the course of several weeks we've taken virtually the entire state's homeless population half again as many people as were counted in last year's point in time count and we've helped them get into housing. We've effectively, least temporarily, ended homelessness in the state of Vermont and I think that's something that we really need to celebrate as a state. We clearly don't want to as you said Chair Stevens we don't want to waste this opportunity to have these folks force back into concrete shelters, cars, encampments and living on the streets when the governor's emergency ends on May 15th. We were really happy to hear when Commissioner Schatz announced and they sent out official notice that folks will not be turned out of motels when the governor's emergency ends on May 15th and we're looking forward to hearing more details on how DCF proposes to engineer the transition. Physical distancing is clearly going to be with us for some time and economic hardship is going to last for many Vermonters for many many months. So now is a time where we really need to build a better system that's going to take us into a better post-COVID world for our state's most vulnerable and most marginalized people. If there's one thing I want to convey to you it's a sense of urgency to lay claim to a substantial portion of the federal CARES Act relief dollars for housing and for homelessness. As you know the state is facing enormous revenue shortfalls for next fiscal year. Tom Kovet reported his most recent estimate of $430 million over the general fund education fund and transportation fund last week to your appropriations committee. And even though federal funding can't be used to fill holes federal fund excuse me even though the coronavirus relief funds the $1.25 billion cannot be used to fill holes in the state's existing budget. There is going to be huge pressure on that flexible source of federal funding from all directions. So please claim as large an amount of this funding as you can for housing and for homelessness. We just kind of quickly review and you know review sort of the big picture of the CARES Act. There's three tranches there's categorical funding some of which you've heard me talk about you've heard others talk about that includes funding that's directed for very specific purposes like community development block grants emergency solution grants funding for public housing section eight rental assistance etc. The second tranche is the coronavirus relief funds which are you know very flexible and there's three basic requirements one that the money must be spent between March 1 and December 31 so kind of needs to be looked at is as one-time funding. It has to be spent on COVID-19 related expenses and it can't be used to fill holes in a state budget that was passed before March 27th. Above and beyond that it has very there's not a lot of guidance from Treasury on this. There is a guidance document that includes shows what sorts of things the money can be spent on there are very few prohibitions other than the three that I've mentioned. The third tranche is FEMA funding which requires 25% state match can also be used very flexibly fairly flexibly and with approval this is important can be used to pay for the motel stays which would help preserve some of the emergency shelter grant funding for some of the other expenses that are shelters and that the state have realized as a result of housing 1600 folks for the last seven weeks in motels. So as you probably know the joint fiscal committee as of yesterday has approved acceptance of the coronavirus relief funds and that has been divvied up into sort of three kind of buckets. The first bucket is $75 million which is to be spent by the administration without further prior approval from joint fiscal or through appropriations committees on COVID-19 related expenditures on health safety and other emergency response needs and most of that incidentally has already been spent by the executive branch addressing the emergency. The next bucket is $150 million to be spent subject to joint fiscal approval for time sensitive critical needs that can't wait for the appropriations process. The remainder $1 billion, $25 million is going to be subject to the normal appropriations process. I was monitoring budget adjustment proposal yesterday. It doesn't look like the administration's coming in and proposing that $1.025 billion be spent through budget adjustment. It's unclear exactly how they're what process they're planning to propose that through. But as you can see with $225 million of the $1.25 billion already in effect authorized to be expended, this money is going to go fast. You're going to receive a proposal from the Senate for a central worker grant program that's scheduled as proposed by the Senate to spend another $60 million. So money is going to go very, very fast. I'm sure you're aware of proposals to spend some of the coronavirus relief funds that I am not yet aware of myself. So I just wanted to point out, I'm not going to go over it in detail, but I sent Ron a document that should be on your webpage. It was put together by the corporation for supportive housing. And I found it to be very, very useful guidance on what some of the federal funding sources that I mentioned, what they can be spent on. These are the same folks, by the way, that put together the roadmap to end homelessness. And it's probably one more useful matrices I've seen of eligible uses for FEMA, the emergency solutions grants, community development block grants, and the coronavirus relief funds, as well as guidance on how to maximize those different programs for housing and homeless response. I'm not going to go. Erhard, hold on a second. I just represent a triad on how to stand up. I just want to see where he is before we head into the next section here. Representative Triad. Yeah, when we, thank you, Tom or Mr. Chair. Thanks for coming today, Erhard. It's always good to hear all the information that you have for us, very valuable. A couple of questions. One is when we talk about services being the third leg of the three-legged stool, do those services include, for instance, folks who are unable to work because of mental health issues and referral to social security for some sort of income? I mean, we know that many people have no income, which is one of the biggest challenges that I guess that we face. So, I'm thinking in terms of these services being provided, which should include referrals to places where they may be able to obtain some income. Does that happen at this point? Absolutely. Yeah, that would be part of the array of services that folks like Pathways, for instance, will provide. Pat can tell you more about that later. But yeah, absolutely, whether it's Pathways, whether it's a homeless service provider or a designated mental health agency or a CAHPS, these are the kinds of things, especially for someone with no income who may not yet have qualified for SSI but has a clear disability, one of the main things. And the state did have a program through Economic Services and BCF at one point to help. I think it was a contract with, might have been with Weber or Vogue Rehab, I can't remember which, to get folks who had severe mental health disabilities and did not yet receive federal SSI. Because that's a, I think you know, a very complicated process. It takes one or two tries sometimes to get approval. It can take well over a year. So there was actually a program at one point to get folks on federal disability to make sure that they had at least that minimal level of income. But yeah, when I wrote supportive services, their wraparound services, their case management, their specialized services, in some instances, it could be job training, it could be budgeting skills, it's a variety of services. I knew about those services as to how to integrate back into a community and be able to maintain a residence. But you know, I used to practice social security law and it's right, it can take a year to get through the process. And it's sometimes quite arduous, especially with mental health cases, I found. So that's a good answer. Now, the other piece that I wanted to ask is, hotels are going to open up for business at some point. And you know, so I guess what we're looking for, at least I'm looking for is some sort of, as you suggested, that DCF might have to come up with some sort of plan as to where people are to go in the right after or in the interim. Well, my recollection is that the governor's order does allow hotels and motels to book people after June 15th. So there is a little bit of a potential transition period there of about a month. And again, as I said, we're looking forward to seeing what DCS plan is. You did hear from, and I'll refer to it again in a moment or two, but you heard from Chris Donnelly, Champlain Housing Trust, the pretty comprehensive plan that CHT and Housing Vermont have put together on behalf of the not profitable housing network to help in fairly short order move folks. And Pat's going to talk about Pathway's ability to help with that effort as well when you get to them. Does that answer your question for now? Thanks. Again, I don't want to go over the corporation supportive housing's detailed matrix. I leave it to you for your reading pleasure, but suffice it to say that this variety of funds can pay for a broad array of needed expenditures now, including rental assistance, which we started talking about on March 12th and March 13th before you all left, had to leave the statehouse as one of the most important things that's going to be needed as people have lost income due to COVID-19. Clearly, not everyone is going to be able to make up lost income through unemployment insurance. And we have Champlain Housing Trust provided you with estimates of both the nonprofit housing sector's potential rental losses as a result of tenant lost income and also included an amount in there for private sector for-profit landlords to help make them whole. So some of that can come from Community Development Block Grant funds. I believe you heard Josh Hanford talk about the $4.2 million state is receiving in CDBG funds, sort of in three different buckets, one being for rental assistance, one for sort of small business, micro business type assistance, and another to help support some of the community facilities and community services, like the food banks and the food shelves that have been doing elements work during during the pandemic. The FEMA funds, as I mentioned, we're familiar with those from Tropical Storm Irene and from other natural disasters we've seen around the country, but obviously those can be used for a broad array of COVID-19 related expenses, everything from personal, from PPE, personal protective equipment to meals, and with approval to non-congregate shelter in motels. And I'm not aware that that approval has come through yet, but that would be a significant thing to have FEMA be able to pay for the motel stays. On the national calls that I've been on, a number of calls to a number of states are making significant use of FEMA dollars to help pay for both motel stays. Most notably, I think North Carolina is one, Connecticut, which is very closely parallels Vermont in their homeless response is another that is tapping FEMA for that. Again, we have emergency shelter grants, solutions grants, rather, which are not just for emergency shelter operations, but can also pay for motel stays. They can pay for cleaning supplies, case management, hazard pay, rental assistance, housing navigation. And the state has already received or is receiving $2.3 million as a first installment of these funds expected to be up to a potential total of $4.6 million. The CDBG dollars, Burlington's also receiving $450,000. And again, the plan that we've heard from DHTD, and I believe you've heard as well is to spend it in those three buckets. That money is all going to go fast. And so we are going to have to rely significantly on the flexible coronavirus relief funding, which also allows for a very broad array of different expenditures related to the response, including landlord outreach, supportive services, eviction prevention assistance, moving folks from motels into leased hotel motels with option to purchase, as proposed by Housing for Vermont and Shemplin Housing Trust, as well as capital for rehabilitating and standing up for supportive housing. I will say... I just have three folks who want to ask questions at this point. Okay. Representative Kalecki. Thank you. When we heard last week from Commissioner Schatz and Chris Donnelly and other folks, it seemed that there was this moment there's a real consensus and a kind of direction that everyone seems like we understand this is the best path forward here, or a better path forward perhaps. And my question is, how can we take this kind of consensus with the administration, with all the different advocates, and actually shape it into something concrete versus each of the advocates coming for a piece of it? And it's sort of asking for itself, but it's forgetting this group. And because I think this holistic moment could be here. And it could be that this committee actually drafts a bill about it, but it's tricky to do piecemeal. I mean, even when the Senate did the... the wages for essential workers, so many people feel they've been left out. So a tricky thing for a committee to do something like this. But I think even with our Senate colleagues, this is a moment. But I don't know how to get everyone working together, even with the administration, because I don't think they're oppositional in any of this. I think people are working together. And you also heard from Gus Seelig and Jen Holler, which they put together a proposal that doesn't have a dollar amount attached to it. But they were suggesting that you and your Senate committee counterparts basically asked them to stand up quickly, an ad hoc committee to basically lead this kind of concerted effort in collaboration with all the other partners, whether it be DCF and OEO, the State Housing Authority, the Housing Finance Agency, the nonprofit network of homeless service providers. This is a unique moment. And I think BHCB is in a unique position because of the way they fund and provide the capital funding for the nonprofit housing network. I think they're in a unique position to help lead that effort. I don't think it would require legislation, as you know, from your experience with the eviction moratorium. And admittedly, that was a very complex bill and required a lot of work by folks who are not usually on the same side of a complicated issue. It took a while to put together legislation. And the legislative process, especially now when it's remote, takes longer than it normally does. I would say even just a joint letter from the two committees saying, here's what we would like you to do along the lines of the proposal from BHCB. And it would take into, I think, CHT and Housing Vermont have done a lion's share of the work in terms of assessing what the needs are. It's a proposal that is not all inclusive. There are other elements that need to be added to that. But I think it's one that clearly can be built off and built on. But it's going to require you all as a committee and your Senate counterparts to tell your appropriations colleagues in very short order that this is a unique moment. And it's going to require a substantial portion of these federal resources. And even though we are looking at a $430 million potential shortfall for next fiscal year, it's going to require ongoing investments. The ones that you know about that we come in every year talking about, whether it's one money for BHCB or Families Port of Housing, the HOP program, all the programs that we have talked to you about during the regular session. So I think, yeah, it doesn't necessarily require a legislation. I think it just requires some clear messaging both to the network of housing and homeless service providers to BHCB and the other partners and to your appropriations colleagues. Okay, thank you. Very good. Thanks. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Representative Hango and then Representative Gonzalez and then Representative Triano. And then I'm going to move over to Gene at 11.45. So we're just going to work till that point with with Earhart. Representative Hango. Thank you. Earhart, the document you sent us outlines the total federal amount. And I missed what you said Vermont's portion of the FEMA grant is going to be. That would be to be determined based on what that that's something that the Emergency Operations Center and the administration would basically put together a request to FEMA. We have approval. We're one of the last states to get that approval, but they would be putting together that proposal to FEMA. Okay, thank you. And those three different buckets that you outlined, the CDBG funds of 4.2 million, the emergency solutions grants of 4.6 million and the FEMA funds, do they come out of the 125 million of funds or the 150? They do not come out. The coronavirus relief funds is its own separate tranche. The CDBG and emergency solutions grants, they're under the bucket of what I would call categorical funding that has certain, you know, certain designated uses. So they're not part of the 1.25 billion? No, no, they are not. They're not. There's there's approximately, from remembering the number, overall $11 billion in HUD funds nationally that these, our share of CDBG and emergency solutions grants section 8 rental assistance for people with rental assistance subsidies, public housing, they come out of the out of the categorical bucket, not part of the 1.25 billion in coronavirus relief funds. Thank you. You represented traveling that you want. Sorry. Yeah, I just wanted to ask about our housing trust agencies. The Memorial Housing Authority has been instrumental in providing a lot of good housing throughout my area. And will they be included? What's the thought? What are your thoughts on that? So I was not directly involved in putting together template housing trust and housing Vermont's proposal, but I know that they surveyed our nonprofit network, including Limoyle Housing Partnership on what they saw as their needs in Limoyle County, both what they expected they might lose in terms of rental income due to people's wage, wage losses, as well as what their potential, you know, for moving folks was out of, out of motels. Also quickly mentioned, you know, we didn't forget Limoyle County in our mini grants. We gave a small $4,900 grant to the Memorial Community House as well to help with their efforts because they've gone beyond their normal April 15th date. Oh, good. Limoyle comes over, it comes into Hardwick as well. They've done a number of really outstanding projects, including the Cherry Street Senior Housing Project as well. So that was, thank you. All right. So knowing that you want to get to some other folks, I'll just hit on a couple of high points. Just one, with all this, even with all this federal money, there are still going to be some fairly substantial funding gaps. And we're working with our congressional delegation, with our national and regional advocacy allies to try and make sure that hopefully there will be another COVID 4.0 that will have a substantial, a more substantial housing investment in our national association is asking for $100 billion in emergency rental assistance. So we're working with them on that. Some of the things that I just want to touch on briefly that were not necessarily highlighted or included in the 106, the $106.5 million proposal from Housing for Buying, the Housing Trust that needs to get added. And that's why I think having DHTB or another one of the state agencies sort of lead in that task force to put it all together would be important. One is our homeless shelters and service providers all have costs as extraordinary costs as a result of the pandemic that need to be added in. You're going to hear from Patrick about Pathways Vermont's proposal, which is part of the solution, and also help supplement what DHT and Housing Vermont put together. We need to remember that SASH is there to help provide supportive services in affordable housing, and it's currently limited to 54 SASH panels around the state serving 5,000 folks as our non-profits are going to be called upon to serve more of this relatively high needs population that's currently in Motel's. Additional support and services at home funding would help provide the supportive services that those folks need to succeed in affordable housing. You heard from both Sarah Carpenter and Josh Hanford. I will just underline their testimony. We need more money for Housing Rehab for the for-profit sector, sort of building on the governor's VHIP proposal that is yet to be funded to do Housing Rehab and bring back substandard and vacant properties back online. And finally, to stand up our apartment housing registry. If I have to go through another statewide disaster in a few years, and hopefully I'll be retired by then, but if we don't have a registry that tells us where the vacant apartments are, where we can relocate people in these disasters, I don't know. I think Chair Stevens and others know how important this is. This is an opportunity to stand up that registry and then when we return to some form of normalcy, have fire safety implement the proposal for statewide code and for minimum housing enforcement. Also, just quickly mention and stress that housing counseling and legal services are going to be needed, especially as the moratorium, the emergency period in the moratorium, comes to a close because people will need both legal aid as well as our home ownership centers counseling them in potential foreclosure or eviction situations for non-payment. Also mentioned that nobody has talked much about homeless encampments, but we probably will have homeless encampments with us even after this transition. And you want to make sure that there are support and services and safety measures for those folks and that we follow the CDC's guidance not to clear encampments at a time when we need to practice social and physical distancing. And lastly, also, we will need a broader array of supportive services and capacity funding for everything from household budgeting to readiness skills and community leadership as we move out of into a post-COVID-19 world. I mentioned BHCB's comprehensive proposal. I would urge you to call upon them to stand up this ad hoc task force bringing together everybody and all the proposals and putting them into a package. But I do mean while I urge you to send a letter to your colleagues on appropriations as soon as possible to let them know what you see as the need in this unique moment for housing and homelessness and lay claim to at least that 106.5 million, but really preferably more because I think that's not going to be enough. I'm just saying closing that this crisis is a very stark reminder that our health depends on the health of others. And when the most vulnerable people in our community are safe, we're all stronger. Shelter providers, most notably Rita Markley from COTS, used to talk about working her way out of business. COTS is the committee on temporary shelter. And here we are over 35 years after COTS was founded with the unique opportunity to move a giant step towards this long lasting goal of ending homelessness in Vermont. And we know what to do and now is the time to do it. So thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer any further questions if you have them. No, thank you, Earhart. And I think that one of the things that is in front of us as a committee and as a community is to take your phrase, which is I've had the privilege to hear for quite some time, of we need more money to putting a number on it because they're, I mean, and that means being inclusive to all of the number of different communities that we're talking about because it's one thing for us to do like we did in March and guesstimate a number and put a placeholder and think that, oh my goodness, that's going to be sufficient or not. But the numbers are based on our experience just in the way that we've done business for some time. The numbers are staggering, but the need is staggering. And I do appreciate you coming at this as we don't need to reinvent the solutions we need to find the capacity to do it, whether that's political or financial. So thank you for your time. I know you'll be listening in on all of the conversations that we have in this, under this category and look forward to hearing from you in the near future. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Thanks for listening. Sure. I'm going to go over to Gene Murray now. Gene, you are here, I think specifically to talk about the rental situations across the state or what you've experienced. I would also just, just based on what I heard from representative from Earhart, in general, when we talk about providing these services, I mean, so we took great testimony earlier this year on the rental or reage program we actually took it last year, where the desire was to increase the funding in the hop up the housing opportunity grant program. That exists. And where legal aid is working in the northwest corner up in Franklin County, in particular with some success, we took testimony on the success of that this this year. But if we were able to increase the funding for rental assistance and rental or reages, one of the things that stood out was the need to have the way that the rental or reage program was working was through legal aid, essentially offering pro bono services to tenants in particular. What kind of capacity increases are you going to would legally need in order to pull that off? So I just want to plant that up with you and have you add that into the the ingredients of your testimony. Thanks. My microphone is yours. Thank you very much. I am Jean Murray from Vermont Legal Aid. And I really, the S333 passed the Senate today. And I really want to express my appreciation to this committee for everything it did to bring that about. Really, it's like one of the best things that's ever happened. It's responsive. It shows that the legislature cares about Vermonters who are homeowners and who are tenants and who are landlords. And it I just can't be appreciative enough if I could bake and send you all pies. I can't bake though, so that's not going to work. I want to talk about preventing evictions. We've heard a lot about people who are homeless and in need of permanent housing, the ones that are currently housed in motels, and what it might take to house those people. But there's another population almost as large at this moment who is about to be homeless. And there are things that we can do right now to prevent evictions and prevent more people from becoming homeless. To me, these fall into two big categories. I want to talk about how we can use right now the coronavirus relief funds to pay for back rent and do rental assistance throughout the until the end of the year. And the other thing I want to talk about is barriers that tenants face when they are trying to find housing or trying to stay in housing. In terms of barriers that tenants face, this situation is a bit unusual. I am totally on the side of everybody that Earhart just mentioned and all the providers that have talked about what they need in order to keep people housed. But usually, as a Vermont legal aid lawyer, I'm on the other side. And in trying to get ready for today, I pulled some statistics of what my experience has been as a legal aid lawyer here in 22 years. And we have a database and I could go look in the database and find out how many people I've helped. So I've been at legal aid for 22 years and I've had 491 housing clients, including 33 foreclosure clients. And in addition to that, I have represented 590 collection clients, people who are being sued for debt. And I spent a year at Lawline where I served another 300 collection clients and another 64 closure clients. So what that experience informs me of more than anything else is what does poverty look like? How are the people who are experiencing poverty? How are they experiencing it? And how is the help that we plan for them not helping? There have been dozens of cases where I see the reason that somebody is being informed that they are going to lose their subsidy or being informed that they're going to lose their subsidized housing or being informed that they are going to be evicted from their housing. And I look at the reasons that are given and I think that's crazy. It's crazy why we evict people and how much our solutions that we think about fall short and are unfair in a certain way. So I want to talk about those things. First and foremost, I have notes and my notes are a little more well-crafted but I really want to be frank about what's going on. Vermont has a rolling homelessness crisis last fiscal year. There were nearly 1800 eviction cases filed but this fiscal year to date the one that started last July 1st there have been 1342 filed and filed cases is not the only indicator of how many people are losing their housing to eviction because eviction process starts with a notice of termination and some tenants receive the notice of termination and leave before the landlords ever go to filing court. So there are more evictions than that and there are more evictions that can be saved than that because if the evictions are for nonpayment when you get a termination notice if you can pay what's owed fast enough the termination goes away and that's one of the shortcomings is even if there are back rent programs and there are not back rent programs that pay all the back rent owed they don't work very quickly to save tenancies and there should but right now the coronavirus relief fund which is title five of the CARES Act has sent 1.25 billion dollars to Vermont and that can be used to prevent evictions from the end of the year through the end of the year. Earhart was talking and I've seen the document the CSH document that talks about how those funds can be used and that's a really useful document. There's also in terms of trying to understand where all the categorical money is coming from and how is that different than the coronavirus relief fund there's a document that is in the documents of joint fiscal and it's called I think it's called COVID-19 tracker or CARES Act tracker just the document that says tracker which shows where all the funds are coming into the various agencies in Vermont and that's very useful to get like a picture to time to see what agencies are getting the funding. From that document rental assistance is not going to be able to be provided with ESG grants and though Department of Housing and Community Development has dedicated 1.8 million dollars to rental assistance 1.8 million dollars is not going to be enough. So that's why I turned to the coronavirus relief fund the 1.25 billion dollars that will have a lot of demands on it but isn't spent and housing helps in Vermont have been underfunded as people have talked about for a very long time. So I think in terms of rental assistance money and preventing evictions, preventing this next 1,000 people from becoming homeless that's where we need to look. So we know from the housing needs study that the reason that people usually get evicted is because rents are high and incomes are low. Their cost burden half of Vermont's renters are cost burden meaning they're paying more than 30 percent of their income for rent and so when you're paying more than 30 percent of your income that means in any given month a household may go without the necessities of life in order to pay the rent. Households live on the edge and if one thing goes wrong such as now going wrong in the pandemic a reduction in paid work hours or other things that can go wrong and increase in childcare costs and illness a change in the family people can get behind in rent. Another thing that is really notable and having worked with a lot of clients who are behind in rent so well what did you you know here's your income they've told me their income what did you spend your income on well I had to pay hundreds of dollars for heat and how did that happen is there storm windows on your house. Do you have drafts what kind of heating system is in your house because if you have one renai heater in a two bedroom apartment and the renai heaters at one end and the bedrooms are the other you have to run that thing all the time in order to get any heat in the bedrooms at all so the cost of heat in substandard housing can lead to nonpayment of rent so and the other thing is why don't you just move if you can't pay the rent. Cost burden budgets are so tight sometimes become homeless after an eviction because it's impossible to save for a security deposit landlords right now many landlords are asking for first month's rent last month's rent and a security deposit even if there are security deposit funds available and even if a person can access those timely which arguably they can't they they can't get three months rent together ahead to get a place to live so those kind of funds need to be made more available and and paid for more. People with subsidies live on the same edge when we talk about tenants paying 30 percent of their income for rent they pay 30 percent no matter how low their income is so for example current SSI payment levels are 870 a month that means rent is 261 which leaves people with 141 a week to pay for everything else electric phone cable some food they may get food stamps but food stamps doesn't pay for everything if they have a car which they need to get to medical appointments they may need to make a car payment and pay car insurance can you imagine trying to do all of that on 141 a week so then if you look at the case of a person who is earning Vermont minimum wage for full-time work and they have a subsidy then they end up paying $556.24 a month for rent and they have $302 a week for necessities almost double but they're not eligible for food stamps and they're not eligible for Medicaid and so they need to pay for those two big ticket items and electric and phone and cable and car payment so they are on the edge all the time evictions are traumatic and destabilizing and have lasting effects on tenants in their communities one thing I always think about I did some work for education and people students being excluded from school across Vermont a few years ago and a statistic that I found was that people students who are receiving free and reduced price lunch 40 percent of them were likely to start the school year in one place and end the school year in another place and that's because of eviction that's because they needed to move in order to have housing so eviction hurts communities in that way and I want people to think about exactly what eviction means eviction means that a tenant has a home and wants to stay in their home but is being compelled to leave through legal process so this isn't people moving out at the end of their lease because they found a better place or they wanted better location these are people being forced to move and they're being forced to move and numbers over a thousand a year way over a thousand a year so even though of the 72,000 Vermont renter households only 2.5 of them are being evicted a year 2.5 percent of them are being evicted a year that's a lot of households and that's every year so I think during this crisis from Monchard fully funded program for back rent when you get my notes there's a link to them to the study that Legal Aid released last year about evictions in court and the reasons for them but here are the highlights 75 percent of evictions in court ultimately result in judgment for possession of the landlords and the vast majority of evictions are for nonpayment so we need to do something now about nonpayment evictions that are coming up so that we don't create a whole new raft of homeless people and I didn't originally have this in here but of course it makes sense to fund lawyers for tenants because most people facing an eviction in court don't have a lawyer and so Representative Steve as you mentioned the Franklin County rent escrow clinic and so how that happens is the people who are being evicted for nonpayment and their landlords file for rent escrow which as we have talked about a lot is a hearing fairly early in the eviction process that guarantees that some rent is being paid into court while the whole case gets decided on so with that juncture tenants get to meet with a lawyer and also meet with the local providers the hot program people to find out if they can get back rent and if those kind of programs that are available would solve the problem so that they can defeat the eviction so bringing all of those resources together that's that is going on right now just in Franklin County in Chittenden County Rutland County Washington County and to a lesser extent in Caledonia and I think Wyndham as opposed to Windsor we have attorneys going to court on rent escrow day and saying hey I'm here can I help and obviously that's not all the counties and that's not as organized as approaches what we're doing in Franklin County but it does help it it helps people get control of their lives it helps people plan it helps people access services it gives people more time and so if you ask me do I think that we need more lawyers in court to to help tenants from becoming evicted I would say yes we need more lawyers to help tenants from becoming evicted um and we can Jean can I can I interrupt now just we have like a couple of questions before we get to the next step or do you just do you have um or do you want to finish up with what you're saying uh before and we'll come we'll come back to you certainly but we just have three lined up and I just want to make sure we don't go well you were talking 20 minutes ago so um I just want to see if this is contemporary stuff is that okay okay okay representative triumph uh yes a couple things occurred to me um Jean as you were speaking um and it's uh if if someone makes minimum wage and has two or three children they're not necessarily disqualified from food stamps and Medicaid um and I think oftentimes what we're seeing um people struggling because they're trying to support two or three children their struggle is more um as to uh you know how to pay their rent and how to you know provide food for their family and medication if needed so uh you know I just that that occurred to me that that was the case um it can I can I just briefly do that real quick yeah the housing yeah the showing that the fastest growing kind of household in Vermont are uh single person households so I I think I saw us to just like 69 of households renting households in Vermont are a single person so um I did use the single person figure um the other thing that just occurred to me is you know I worked um in community action uh in the northeast kingdom in the night or mid 1970s what we saw more often than not when you speak about the face of poverty we saw generational poverty we saw people who were not in housing crisis because they inherited um a home um from maybe two or three generations prior to them uh but the home was so in such bad shape due to the poverty is what we were trying to repair at that time so you know that it just the face of poverty is not only people who are struggling to pay their rent it's people who are struggling um who have housing but are struggling to stay alive basically it just occurred to me as you started talking about the face of poverty that was popped into my mind um but tell me what what you would think full funding would be for the rent arrears program to legal aid I mean I it was my understanding I think it's about eight hundred thousand dollars right now that was the that was the ask when we released the eviction report eight eight hundred thousand dollars and fund legal aid attorneys who could meet people um at rent escrow hearings and help them so that is the figure um I'm a little flat footed I haven't um recalculated the figure based on what's going on I we're actually anticipating that this is going to be a bit of a mess because um filing of uh eviction and ejecting cases has slowed down um and what we suspect is once the emergency is over lots and lots of cases are going to get filed and um also we're hoping that in one way form or another whether it's this coronavirus relief fund or it's uh the cdbg money that there is going to be rental assistance available but we also suspect that it it's not going to be like uh send the money over it's going to be a process for people to apply and get the money and that's going to create delays and and people are going landlords are going to say this has been delayed long enough and when is this really going to happen and so we are anticipating it's going to be a big um crunch uh whenever the emergency is over it's hard to agree just to conclude it quickly or if I can that if my daughter just went through a rent crisis in New York City um when her roommate moved out and her rent was $3,500 a month um so what she had done is studied a lot about their rental uh uh situation in New York and they Jax actually have abated uh first and last uh month demands for um for uh landlords who are or for rentals actually and um maybe that's something we should be thinking about as well that she uh did require a security deposit of which was equal to a month's rent in the new place that she moved in but first and way uh last have been waived uh you know go ahead oh that's it no go ahead she I mean there are a lot of ideas out there uh of of little things differently and and just like everything else just like the roadmap to and homelessness we need to have the will um to do it and uh there are a lot of different uh like I saw a a bill that's going to be introduced in Illinois that would essentially say all rent is cancelled um and the program would be for landlords to apply to make themselves whole um and it was for a period of time like 180 days um so there's lots of ideas out there about how to make this easier I guess one of the things that I was thinking about was build on the ideas that we already have but fully fund them and fully fund them through the end of the year with the coronavirus relief fund is is was there another question or yes I have two um I have two uh here I have representative Byron followed by representative Hango no the representative Hango is all set right now um so representative Byron um thank you I just wanted to circle back to the conversation on the eviction rates you said that we had about a 2.5% eviction rate in the state of Vermont I was just curious how that compares to a national average well there's a great book there I didn't I didn't do that research but there was a Harvard um eviction lab wrote the book eviction and had there are sources that can say what the eviction rate is um in various places some places it's higher in some places it's it's lower but I don't have that answer for you I mean I would assume that I just didn't know if we were like in the middle if we were if we had a higher eviction rate than other places other states lower in the middle I was just trying to gauge it as a to help form the template of the conversation um so yeah others our evictions have to be through court um other states have different uh methods of eviction ours have to be through court so sometimes it's it's comparing apples and oranges if you're in a state where the landlord can just go with a piece of paper on your door and you have to be out three days later it's hard to compare compare that to our process um so no and I I know we have a a more engaged and involved process to expect someone from their from their home um I would just be interested to see then how we compare to states that I have a similar operating procedures ours just to get an idea of you know if it would give me a sense of whether or not our current system is how it is functioning if we're looking at lower or higher or moderate rates I just think it would be a useful measurement if that information was attainable well I guess if if you ask me our eviction rates too high because uh tenants are going in unrepresented and they many many of them don't get access to programs to help them and they get evicted so uh I don't understand your point of view from your organization for sure yeah I was just curious like what a like a data-driven sort of analysis of comparatives would look like I can find that for you and and send it in with my um written testimony cool thank you very much I appreciate that all right any further questions for gene or final comments from you gene um before we move over to that I did want to get to some of the things that are barriers to um people uh in finding housing and keeping housing one is unlawful discrimination I don't know people know this but uh Vermont's law prohibits discrimination against um receded public assistance that's a state law that makes a lot of sense landlords can't decide I'm not going to rent to you because uh your income is from public assistance or that you're trying to rent with a rental subsidy a tenant based subsidy so technically that's on the books and prohibited but it's not enforced we don't have a way to enforce it we don't actually have a culture that says it's okay it's not okay to discriminate against people who receive public assistance so there's uh in addition to public assistance discrimination there is a lot of discrimination against people with disabilities that's where housing first programs come in and and where so they need more help because landlords uh say I don't want to rent to somebody who had to have a worker help them get the place that means that they're in trouble and they're not necessarily taking into account that the person's disabilities could be reasonably accommodated so we do have a lot of housing discrimination going on and that is a contributor to homelessness um when we think about the coronavirus relief funds and making rules about how to give them out for uh rental assistance we shouldn't repeat um some of the barriers that have arisen with the rules that we already have um I have had uh tenants uh victed because they couldn't uh they didn't do some paperwork that they were supposed to do they didn't recertify on time every year and I've seen these forms and it's akin to applying for a mortgage every year it's quite a bit heavy paperwork burden and the housing authorities that ask for this paperwork they don't have enough staff to sit down with everybody and help them fill it out so um to avoid being uh evicted for paperwork shortages there needs to be more staff and there just needs to be a determination that somebody shouldn't lose their housing simply because they didn't get applications in on time um so the other thing that people uh get evicted for uh technically in subsidized housing you're only supposed to be evicted for repeated and serious violations of the lease but again this is one of the things that I think about um when I get a case somebody is being evicted because their children are noisy or they've left their open or there's somebody on the lease not on the lease is staying with the tenant and the paperwork didn't get in to add that person to the household um people get evicted because neighbors complain about parking spaces and surveillance cameras and funny looking guests and pets and trash and all of these uh admittedly um annoying reasons but they could be uh it's not that people shouldn't pursue the solution of the problems but they should solve the problems rather than making the people homeless um and so with coronavirus relief funds um that at least for a while we could end up with the staffing necessary and the money necessary to keep people who are teetering on the edge of homelessness housed um oh yeah and my last point um which is everything that uh that you already know and Earhart's already said we need a rent registry of rental housing and we need a statewide inspection system so that we the current housing stock that is being rented this is not vacant stock that needs to be rent rehab the current stock that is being rented is up to code and is um in is providing a safe environment um and a safe place to live for people without I guess I want to harken back to my experience in Massachusetts as an attorney Massachusetts has a statewide housing inspection system and they have a law that if you have a code violation currently um happening you aren't unable to evict person it's a defense to eviction unaddressed code violation um it is in that way landlords have an incentive to keep their properties up to code um and it works pretty well more places in in Massachusetts in my experience of course this was more than 22 years ago have better housing conditions than a lot of the places here in Vermont um so those are the kinds of things that I I want to say there are specific things that could be done for subsidized housing there could be a law requiring um mediation in eviction cases so that the problems get solved and people don't simply aren't evicted because of of lease violations um so those are the the particular things I want to say there's a population at risk of homelessness now there is money to help them now and I think that's what should happen well thank you I mean this is again this crisis is really exposing everything about everything um when it comes to these circumstances and I want to thank you for sharing sharing your testimony and um anything that you can share with us electronically that we can put up on the website that would be very helpful we'll be there in a little bit thank you yeah take your time um so we'll pop right over to Patrick Gallagher from Pathways Patrick thank you for joining us I understand it's Pathways Day here in the State House in the virtual State House I believe the Senate is also hearing from Pathways today and one of the things as you talk about your program I just want to point out that there are other um well Pathways has been in our committee and um we have been working with Pathways for some years to try to extend the housing first program as as much as we can with the proper amount of funding um I just want to acknowledge to everybody we heard testimony last week that there are also agencies like Washington County Mental Health Service where there are um also variations on the theme it might be slightly different clientele but that that um I think what I appreciate about Pathways in general is that they've been able to really expand as much as they have and then they've requested to expand much more and I just want to hear Patrick just your thoughts on where the organization is in terms of what the near future may hold and in terms of providing solutions to along with some of these other agencies that already exist the um the I would call it medium term um solutions to what we're talking about um medium to long term because it can be but I think Pathways has traditionally been transitional so microphone is yours thank you for joining us oh thank you for having me um speaking of landlords my landlord just showed up and started mowing the lawn so if that if you hear a lawnmower in the background that's what that is let me know um uh yeah so um I guess I'm I'm here to talk about what we're currently doing in the face of this pandemic at Pathways how we're currently serving and then how we can see ourselves as being helpful to solve the the current problem um you know the folks the 1600 or so folks that are currently um in motels um we've adjusted our um our services to be able to keep both the folks we serve as well as our staff safe um so that means that we're visiting people as much as we can via telehealth services and making sure they have the correct um technology internet access to keep them connected um and stay safe in their homes um as you may know the majority of people we work with are considered vulnerable the most vulnerable to this to the disease so it's very important to us to keep them safe especially at this time when this first began I think we had some worries that we weren't going to be able to find housing but that has not come to fruition um it's been good news to see our housing team be able we're actually housing we've hit record numbers of people housed in a month so since mid-march when this kind of all began we've housed over 35 people around the state um in all areas of the state and we're doing that um with cooperation from landlords who I've really stepped up and I think uh want to help understand why it's so important to get people into housing especially now um and keep them safe and as Aira was alluded to before I think it's become very clear that helping the most vulnerable among us stay safe helps everyone stay safe um and healthy at this moment um so uh we're still very much active still very much housing folks and serving them making sure they have their daily needs met getting them food supplies uh PPE supplies we've had um lots of people step up um and either donate um PPE items that we're able to get out there or make don't make items masks etc so that's been great to see the community step up and um help those that we're working with um we've put together in terms of what's going on now um we've put together a proposal um because we think that our housing first services um will play a part in being able to solve this um the the problem of the 1600 folks that are kind of stuck in motels right now we don't want to see them go back to the street um or congregate settings and shelters and housing first services and what we provide are designed to permanently end that issue or that problem folks um so um you know we've been in in your committee um a number of months ago talking about um the need uh that we see in the state to expand these services into areas that don't have them um so what we've put together is a quick proposal uh showing that um with 2.5 million dollars uh we'd be able to expand into the counties um that we're currently not in so uh Rutland, Bennington, Orange, Lamoille and the Northeast Kingdom um and uh we would need an additional uh one million dollars in rental subsidies to be able to house those folks and keep them housed so the 2.5 would be for um the services we provide um that would serve up to 200 uh new individuals uh and we'd be able to take them out of that um or temporary motel stay and get them into permanent uh apartments around the state um so in a nutshell that's our our quick proposal as to what we're talking about um doing and we like I said I think we want to be a part of this solution because we know that these services are what permanently ends homelessness for folks um and um you know we're at a unique situation where it's both a crisis but um the crisis um it's kind of um showing us opportunities to really make uh big changes um in in our society um that could potentially in the end be positive um so we are looking at this as an opportunity to to help people out of homelessness permanently um so that's really where we're at um and yeah I'd love to take your questions see what you what you think um about the proposal about our services quick questions I say quick I'm sorry two questions yeah um the first is is the two is the 3.5 of the 3.5 million dollars in the request what would be annualized from that uh that is an annualized uh amount so so it's 3.5 annually on top of on top of what we already budget you through the ssa program that you're in yeah yes yeah okay this is a this is a this would be um you know our services are a long-term commitment um to to really address the situation for folks and that's yes so it's annualized and this would take your program statewide I mean it's been it's been it's been we've been going in bits and pieces exactly the request earlier this year was only for two more counties but this is to pretty much cover the rest of the state yes we put forth this proposal because we see obviously there's a there's um a pressing need um and a large number that you guys are looking at needing to figure out what to do with um so we're putting this proposal out as this is what it would take to provide this statewide for these folks so if you could just and if we just take a step back now and just um um uh saying it's housing first is like a simple one-dimensional way of saying if we could I mean we we know what it is it's like we're going to put people in housing and provide them with services and we're going to provide them with with an apartment um they're going to have bedding they're going to have silverware they're going to have things so it's not like they're going from a campground to an inside campground but can you can you just describe for us like what that process is and exactly who you're looking at when you're talking about getting out of the out of the 1800 people you want to you want to be able to have the capacity to house 200 more so when you reach out to a landlord how do you interact with the private landlords do you sign master leases do you do you know how do you deal with uh potential damage done to the apartment security deposits if you could just give us a quick primer on on how that transition happens how you how folks come to you and apply and then get into the housing just so that we can have a full understanding I don't want to just say oh you know it's housing first don't you know um I'd like to just get a little bit of education out there if we could sure um so um our programs are really designed to work with um what would be deemed the hardest to house folks who have a long history of um homelessness um traumatic events happening um to them incarceration um institutionalization so first and foremost we tend to be um the uh the folks that take on um the people that have fallen through the cracks or that other programs haven't worked for um and one of the tenants the big tenants of what we do is that we do not um pick and choose who we work with right so we if someone want the only real issue that we question we ask folks before they um you know work with us is if they want housing um once we determine that they do want housing um um we will work with them no matter what issues have prevented them from having housing in the past what that means is that we then uh we have a separate housing team from a services team our housing team does a needs assessment with uh the future tenant to talk about what they need in housing and what they want where they need to be located um so we do an individualized housing search for that person um in in the community that they're looking to be and we take into account if they need to be near transportation um you know if they need to be on a first floor um you know accessibility issues etc um if they have if they have a dog things like that um so that we find a good fit for them and then we do an individualized housing search and um you know after 10 years of existence we have lots of landlord relationships around the state and that's um one thing that makes this program really work so our separate housing team works to ensure that we have strong relationships um we work with over 150 landlords around the state um so many of these um these the housing that we find are you know one two three uh households or three apartments to a household type of situation small landlords um and if a land normally you know we there's a number of reasons landlord work with us um they've most of the time we find they want to help um and in the past potentially they have felt you know burned by someone who may have a section eight voucher but didn't have the services really to back that up what we provide is a housing team that is there for a landlord to discuss any issues that are going on and we look to mediate those issues um as as we move someone in and then throughout their their tenure at the apartment um when a landlord does agree um to housing um we uh work to get that person well first of all most of the time we the tenant is signing um uh lease themselves um part of that is helping them understand the responsibility they have in that apartment um it's their apartment and they have the same responsibilities as any other tenant in the community um you know that that's another big thing that we really want to do is help someone integrate into the community and understand their responsibilities as a tenant so most of the time they are signing the lease we do have some instances where normally in our department of corrections program where we have a separate funding stream through department of corrections that we master lease but the majority are our tenant lease um apartments um we work to uh ensure that they have like you said the basics when they move in um so you know bedding um pots and pans toiletries etc so they move in you know to a home from day one we're not just putting them into an empty apartment um and from there we provide uh what we call wrap around services so we have a separate services team that separate from our housing team that um works to um really address issues that the tenant wants to work on so we look to be non-prescriptive we don't from day one walk in there and say look you need to be sober if you want to keep this housing for example um we would go to them and say look what are your goals um normally the first few goals are to have housing to keep housing um to stay warm uh you know and then from there we work on other things they a lot of times want to reconnect with family um they want to work on income potentially work on substance abuse issues um things of those nature and we really um customize our service approach depending on what that person is self identifying they want to help with so we'll help with um identifying employment or help with um you know entitlements etc um to make their life sustainable um and to help themselves improve themselves um in housing um and this is you know it's a long term commitment we we uh make to folks so we don't just put them into housing and then walk away a year later um we're working with people who have uh many times decades of uh you know trauma and homelessness um and that doesn't get completely resolved um you know within a few months so this is a long term commitment to folks and you know after years I personally watch people go from you know someone who's has been on the streets um for decades and you would never think would be able to work or live peacefully in a community to um you know living in the community having a job reconnecting with their family um you know really being part um of society again um but it's a long term commitment um and in terms of if there's issues in that apartment um you know we are available always to talk with the landlord and with the tenant about whatever's going on and we do our best to mediate that um we do have you know we have an 85 retention rate which means you know 85 percent of the folks that we work with stay housed um that other 15 percent like I said we work with challenging um individuals um there might come a time where they need to move um you know the landlord's asking it it's not a good fit it's not working um we will work as hard as we can to move them out without an eviction happening um without um you know large cost piling up and then we'll what we don't do is give up on that person if their subsidy is still intact um we make a plan um to um talk to that person about what happened what needs to change and what they're willing to commit to do to change um in order to make housing work and I've also seen you know folks who you know quote unquote burnt out of their first department make significant changes um because part of this is a learning process around how what it means to be a good tenant um and and you know how you can safely stay housed um you know because losing that first apartment sometimes for folks is a big wake-up call in terms of what behaviors need to change um but what what's really important is that we don't go to them and say look you lost your chance see we do our best to help them again um obviously with um new plans and and new rules in place to help them um sustain uh a second second apartment if it need be um so that was kind of a long within answer but hopefully that gave you a little bit of a short by legislative standards okay um and I and I do think that um we have a question from Representative Howard I want to go but to her in a second but the first thing I want to do for committee and for folks that are watching if you and maybe and and to our committee assistant Ron if you can post some of the basic informational uh material that we have in our files on pathways I think all of these services are provided in a way that reduce the costs of uh compared to what exists for the what we consider the status quo which is homelessness is expensive and you know providing emergency services or emergency room services is always much more expensive and I think I've always been shaken by the the amount of savings that are reflected in the pathways materials and so we have we have that and we'll repost it just so that people see that that supporting a program at 3.5 million dollars annually may result in cost differentials that are significant and um and I think this goes to what Earhart was talking about earlier we have ideas about how to trade off expenses that are more beneficial than than the emergency services but let's say we'll post that and just have that as part of our our larger conversation um representative Howard if you'd like to unmute yourself you um thank you and thank you Pat for your testimony today I represent one of the districts in Rutland City and a while back we were told that you were coming um to Rutland to set up an office and then we were told you weren't coming so we were very disappointed so I am um excited to hear that you are considering coming to Rutland and other locations from what I have learned about your organization I have been very impressed um actually uh Representative Gamash has has uh as a land previous landlord had a great relationship with your organization and that was good to know so um I just want to say I wish you the best and I certainly look forward to seeing you um come to Rutland we need to thank you well thank you yes um yeah I think we've always um we've always had the goal you know what we we believe that these services should be equitable across the state um that you know um as Representative Stevens was saying we've kind of received piecemeal funding along the way and and have spread out around the state depending on where we've received funding to be but we um you know have an internal um goal and uh desire to be um to provide these services statewide um because the need exists in every corner of the state um and you know we want these services to be equitable so yes um you know if if we receive the funding to do so we um see the need to expand these services and I also want to mention that I'm I'm pleased to see that you that you do have a team and if there is an issue that you um work with the tenant and the landlord because I have heard from good tenants bad tenants good landlords bad landlords and um it can be pretty tense so I'm I'm pleased to know that thank you and we we separate our services for for um important reasons um you know in a more traditional model the the service coordinator if you want to call them that would be both the landlord liaison and uh the um you know person providing services to the person who's housed and that uh creates a lot of weird power differentials when that person comes looking for rent or is kind of the person who needs to communicate the consequences that the landlord is communicating what we want to do is separate those so that there can be a um a real trust relationship built between the service coordinator the person who's providing those essential services that can help change someone's life and the person who's dealing with the more nitty gritty how to keep you know rent what the landlord needs um you know expenses sides of things so we really work to make sure that those two sides are separate and that the client understands that okay thank you representative hanko thank you patrick I just wanted to know um because I I still am trying to fit the pieces together is um pathways one of the agencies that would be benefiting from the state reorganizing the general assistance monies um that's a restructuring that's supposed to happen next year april june somewhere like that that um uh commissioner shats and others have talked about oeo um sarah phillips to be honest i'm probably not the best person to ask that but airheart probably has a better answer to that than me uh i don't know because the my understanding is that um money would flow to local agencies as opposed to um the statewide group deciding where the need is and where the funding is going so that's what i'm trying to clarify is if your agency would get organization would get some assistance in that respect and more of a say where you operate and who you serve so whoever can answer that if you can that would be great well um yeah I i'm not sure that that answer has been completely answered yet in terms of how much of a say we'd have in it um obviously we're part of the system um and and would be looking to help folks with those funds but in terms of where we're at with that I can't air I probably can answer that clear thank you um and airheart do you want to take a try at that or do we want to um have a clearer answer provided at a different time well I can answer briefly um and I think the answer is it's not clear right now um what is going to happen with that proposal um as uh as you all know your house appropriations committee basically had to abandon the budget that they were 80 done with on march 13th and that is the budget that uh at least postponed operationalizing that e-c-f-o-e-o proposal until April 1st 2021 I think the intent is still going to be to try and put greater emphasis and greater funding uh to the local level um and you know we've seen that the local responses to the pandemic has been absolutely key and critical but I think we're gonna have to wait and see what the lessons learned are from this response before people kind of regroup and figure out how that's going to play out I would certainly hope since pathways um like other organizations is part of that critical response at the local level in the areas that they currently serve that they would benefit from whatever funding additional funding might be moved out of the motel voucher program uh into the local level because clearly pathways is part of uh through their work as part of what is helping um to at least keep the motel voucher budget prior to the pandemic as not that it was low it was high um but keeping it within uh the bounds uh boundaries that we've seen as they are serving folks who might otherwise be in motels thank you for that um I feel like I'm beating a dead horse and I'm going in circles and probably everybody feels the same way at this point but um we did hear last week from DCF that they plan to go forward with this so it is my hope that worthy organizations like this that are boots on the ground in communities will be funded in that way so that they can continue their work and that this money isn't just going um to a model that no longer works and we were clearly told before COVID-19 that the motel voucher system does not work that it's broken so um I do hope everybody keeps that in mind as we go forward and that the powers who be are making those wise decisions thank you thank you um representative Kamash you had your hand up before did you take it down or did I do that by mistake no I actually took it down but I would like the opportunity to just reiterate um I had mentioned before at a prior committee meeting from my own personal experience with pathways that I can say everything that Patrick has just said is exactly right they are there for their clients they provide all the services that are needed and they work very well with the landlords so that if there is a problem regardless of what it is without with with one of their clients they step in in order to resolve the issue and this is such a wonderful um it gives landlords it's a it's a reassurance that that if there is a problem they have the landlords has somewhere to turn and and the problem will be resolved one way or the other to everyone's satisfaction um my own experience I never had I never had a situation where well I'm sorry there was one situation where um the client needed to be removed and that had to do with their behavior not in terms of the property but related to an issue that got them involved in pathways one of the pathways programs and there was a violation but it happened and and so they they needed to be removed from the property so but there again even in that in that situation I mean they just they were they're there for when when the need arises and I really I can't say I can't praise them enough as a as an agency that really steps up to the plate and does what they say and and is is you can always touch base with them your your when when you call upon them as a landlord they always respond in a timely way and that is so very important um that's all I'll say great I've said I've said thank you for that I we truly appreciate your support and um we do work hard to ensure like I said our landlord relationships are what make this program work it also allows us to be nimble right and and adjust and move people in quickly so we truly appreciate support like yours and work very hard to to ensure that landlords understand why we do what we do and feel supported and feel like they have someone to turn to when there are issues you know I think that's a that's a big part of what makes what makes this work so and another piece to this that I think is important to acknowledge is this is our program like I said is relatively we can be relatively quick and hit the ground running so we do not need to build or rehab housing we can utilize current existing um apartments uh around the state and in many areas around the state there are there are available apartments um that we can um relatively immediately make use of um and you know like I said we work with some of the the the more challenging folks um who you know congregate settings don't necessarily work out well and have proven that over a long period of time with those with that population this allows people to integrate into the community and and not be so segregated so there there's some pluses um you know in in that area as well along with the cost savings that Representative Stevens was talking about thank you um I just want to be mindful of time it's 12 of one on my computer um we do have a uh I do want to talk to committee for a few minutes to talk about Friday a little bit but um I also want to get to Representative Kalaki and Triano so Representative Kalaki you can unmute yourself thank you thank you Pat um last week we heard from Chris Donnelly um about immediate needs it was a sort of a framework of $106 million does your halfway's component of the 2.5 million of the additional million that you wrote to the speaker does that live within the 106 or is this something outside of that this is something outside of that this is uh particular to our services um that is outside of that what they're talking about although we are we are you know um in that proposal they are talking about the need for more housing first services um and you know we are supportive of providing more housing first services um you know in the state in Chittenden County in the areas that we are currently serving um so in that sense you know we're supportive of that but this proposal that we're putting out is is separate but why why wouldn't yours be included I'm just I'm just trying to get a sense of the bigger picture and who's not in that 106 million yeah um in terms of why um I think we've this is a um separate proposal that we've come up with in terms of areas that we're not in um so these currently don't exist um and so we weren't included in that 106 million because um it wasn't a proposal that we were able to get in quick enough to get into that 106 million um so it's um a way to supplement what they're talking about um to to um potentially how some of the more challenging folks out of that 1600 and are there other agencies not also in this 106 that you're aware that that I can't answer I I don't know that I just know all right well I I really like everyone on the committee I'm very supportive of what you do it's pretty amazing and we're just trying to respond as quickly as we can to all of this but thank you yep thank you representative Trana I just wanted to briefly mention uh Patrick that uh you know uh from the first time I've heard of pathways back on my years in human services committee um the model seems to be a good fit a good fit for what we need so I'm encouraged by your notion to bring your services to parts of the state that um currently are not that they don't exist and particularly in the northeast kingdom I've been in touch with our homeless coalitions and uh and in cities and or in towns that we have um no shelters available and um well tell vouchers are the only answer which you've been around with as far as the cost and and some of the downside of that so I just wanted to encourage this and I hope that it is not a competing interest in the proposal that we heard last week for the 106 million or whatever so but I you know I support pathways in a big way and I thought if I think if you could bring them into the northeast kingdom where I mentioned before generational poverty is what we're dealing with there still and 45 years after I work there in that capacity so I just want to pledge my support to your program thank you for that appreciate it and representative Hango just one question and this is directed at anybody I'm sure everyone else but me can answer this question remind me what the 106 million dollar ask is the 106 million dollar ask was what was provided from us through Christon Elise testimony it was a memo that was in last week's testimony so you can find the breakdown there it was roughly 23 million dollars in rental assistance and other programming to keep people in their homes now it was a 70 million dollar capital ask yeah and then about a four million dollar service ask I don't know if that added up to everything that was there but that's the rough that's the rough numbers that were included and that was compiled by Champlain Housing Trust and other housing folks up in Chittin County and could you remind me also where that was coming out of in respect to the figures that Earhart gave us in terms of either the CARES Act or coronavirus funds or not or the my understanding again it's pretty clear in the memo if we can we can go read it again but I believe that that was not related to any of the state minimums it may have been it may have included some of the state minimums but I think this was a proposal to talk to tap into the CARES money in terms of the relief money um Earhart if you have a quick clarification that would be great very quick uh community grants Earhart or no actually the 106.5 million the proposal was for all of that to come uh in the proposal was for all that to come from the coronavirus relief funds although I will say some of the uh expenses that are no come from some of the other categorical funding as well and we just also to represent Kallaki's question just say quickly that there was in that proposal Patrick may not have had a chance to go into the full budget there was about $900,000 in their budgeted four pathways for housing for housing first so there's a little bit of double coverage but as Pat said that comprehensive proposal was developed before pathways had a chance to get theirs up and running so they're they're not contradictory they're supplemental to each other and the 900,000 was what the ask was to go to two yeah counties whereas this is this is an expansion of that to try to get this statewide yeah yeah Chris and they incorporated that original pathways ask into their proposal but weren't aware of this larger statewide proposal that pathways has come up with so air hard can you quickly say whether that 900,000 and the 106.5 million came out of one of the three buckets that you were talking about on the coronavirus relief funds there was a 75 million a 150 million and a 125 million it would so if I wasn't clear it would come out of the 1.25 billion dollar bucket uh whichever to is the coronavirus relief funds uh bucket though with the footnote that some of those expenses could a small portion of them could come from some of the other cares act funding but the request was for that to come from coronavirus relief so from the 1.25 billion and you had broken those down into that 1.25 billion down into three different um categories of 75 million 150 million and 125 million based on the action of the joint fiscal uh committee your joint fiscal committee yes that was the 150 million that that was uh that was the 1.25 that was a three-way breakdown of the 1.25 billion dollars in coronavirus relief funds for uh your joint fiscal action so there so there's joint fiscal committee has has broken out this 70 million the numbers that you just listed and so some of that's administration expenditures and some of that will be okayed by the jfo 150 million yeah yeah and then I think we're left with the 1 billion and just 25 and 25 million so um all right I um before we go so so committee what I really want to do is first of all I just want to uh say Ron has posted information onto our website from the jfo from pathways from Jean Murray um to follow up on the on the testimony we received today um and then I think Ron um I think I'd like to sign off in a in a half a minute from the live feed and just talk to the committee for a couple of minutes afterwards if I could do that so um I would like to thank Jean and Earhart and Pat for joining us today um so again it's a lot of information to take in let's utilize the information that's on our website um to try to wrap our heads around some of the the harder numbers that we can't do just verbally but um thank you all for for sharing this information we all know that this is this next step is is um crucial and getting it right is um not going to be the easiest task in the world so um thank you everybody and we will see you next time