Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Tuesday, 02/10/2026. It's ten And fifteen we are here to hear about the housing initiative that the Agency of Human Services, and specifically BCF, is proposing for FY27. Lots of moving parts, so we're glad you came back and talked to us. I think you were up in Human Services last week. Yes. So you've already had a run through, and we look forward to hearing what you have to say. I'm sure we'll have questions. So please take it away. Great. We'll just introduce ourselves.

[Megan Smeaton (DCF Financial Director)]: For the record, Megan Smeaton, financial director, DCF.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: And I'm Sandy Hoffman, interim commissioner for DCF. And we have all the AHS folks here because it is an agency initiative. It's not just DCF. DCF is holding the budget. But as we get into things that are specific to different departments, or the secretary's office will ask them to join. That sounds great. Thank you. So just a high level overview is that this is going to be a phased approach over a few years. We're hoping to build a better future to serve clients and communities in a way that's sustainable with better outcomes. We're planning to invest in additional shelter capacity and services and to modify the use of hotels and motels during the transition period. We want to better connect people to services, and we want to leverage programs and provide alternative housing options. We want to drive system change for how the community partners, the community action agencies, shelter providers, municipalities, mental health providers, substance use providers, aging and care providers, strategize and plan for their community needs together. And then we have the budget components. Can you walk through those?

[Speaker 0]: Yes, so just to investigate for a second, you have a little And longer that's just to represent where you're trying to go?

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: Yes, the shift and where the services will be provided. So you can see there's not a decline in housing options. It's just different. It looks different.

[Speaker 0]: So reduction so the goal is reduction in hotel motel GA housing, as it's an increase in shelter and adverse weather. Is that Yes.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, I just wanted to, so in the shelter capacity, will you be speaking to how many of those shelters will actually come online in the coming year? What we hope will come online, yes. Okay,

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member)]: Tom. So given the way the world

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: has gone for the last, going on six years now, shelters have made this roaring comeback of need just based on the sheer numbers of folks that we're dealing with here. But for many, many years, investing in shelters wasn't viewed as I mean, it's crisis of the instant in many, many ways. And it's been a long instant. And I know we're trying to invest as much money as possible in housing. But I feel like we're losing momentum on providing the housing that we would move people from shelters into a little bit. And I'm just curious to know what the thought is long term in terms of investing more money in housing that would whatever that's defined to be for people coming out of pennilessness. Because I think there's been a gap is growing between what kind of housing would be sufficient for the state's responsibility to help people have stable housing. And what we're going to hear today is going to be just want to throw that out there now before we get into Is

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: that for everyone to think about? Because I don't know that I can speak to what housing will come online in a few years. I can talk about what AHS hopes to do to help those who are unhoused now in the next few years.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Want to point out that shelter has we have been trying to avoid the use of shelters for many, many years because they're so temporary and they don't solve the problem that we're trying to solve. So by using shelters, we're really saying that we can only provide temporary solutions, eighty days a year kind of thing. And so I just want to lay that out there because we're investing so much money in shelters. And again, I I admit and will, you know, accept the fact that in the crisis of the incident, shelters are better than nothing. But in terms of long term investments, not much more. So I just want to lay that out. And that's the context I'm going to hear that you're in your testimony today. Thanks.

[Megan Smeaton (DCF Financial Director)]: Go on with the next slide. This is a comparison of budgets that we put together that I think is helpful to show the moving pieces in terms of following the dollars. So we have one

[Speaker 0]: But

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: it looks nice.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: Great It's slide. Somebody email that to Autumn so we can give it a message.

[Speaker 0]: Just a second. The presentation we have goes from this slide that you just had to additional cell phone capacity $6,000,000 combined with $5,000,000

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: carried forward. The date?

[Speaker 0]: February 9. This morning. There

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: should have been some that were sent this morning.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: I sent this I sent this last night. Okay.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: Can you send this morning's? See, we're constantly enhancing things? We need some prayer. It's okay.

[Speaker 0]: What would this be coming from?

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: It's going to come from Nelly.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: I'll have to send you a little while because I'm screen sharing right now.

[Speaker 0]: So you don't have anything on

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: the front desk for this? I have

[Speaker 0]: what I What you gave us from yesterday. Yeah. Stops with sharing. Yeah. Can

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: you share yours? Sure. We're going to switch to sharing so Nelly can send it to you. Great.

[Speaker 0]: Did see just briefly, and I saw some little chart that was in an email that somebody sent that looks similar to that, but probably has different numbers of historic. And I would like to see the breakout. There's a $32,000,000 line item. I'm doing this from memory because

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I saw it for a second and a

[Speaker 0]: half back there. That included hop and shelters. And it had a bunch of stuff in it. So I would like to see how that's broken out, because some of that shelter funding and some of it is financial support of people and wrap up services. Those are different things to us. One is bricks and mortar or whatever.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: I think we're going to do that for the state fiscal year The proposal, we're going to break it

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: out. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Did what? It's a question. If Lily has a response to what I'm

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yes. So that's in the base of preparation that

[Speaker 0]: is not bricks and mortar. That is spending under the housing opportunity grant children for operating friends and services in the community. So that does not include the significant investment grade acquisition. It is, again, the Housing Opportunity Grant program, which is an umbrella continuum of services for people experiencing at risk of homelessness. So it includes shelter funding for operations, the direct financial assistance, the housing based management,

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: so that they like navigation, they're experiencing homelessness,

[Speaker 0]: as well as a small amount of homelessness prevention. We fund the homeless management education system. And so that's awesome. A lot of these providers perform those array of services. So how can we be the actual, they run shelter capacity, they also provide a significant amount of engagement to people who are not necessarily in that shelter. So is it possible to break out within COP what are direct services to clients and what is shelter operations? Like costs around the shelters, which is I assume the populations are.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: Is it possible to break that out? Yeah, absolutely.

[Speaker 0]: That would be really helpful to I see just needed to ask it the right way. Thank you. And

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: I just sent representatives And to

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I just printed it out. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Great. Thank you for clarifying that.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Okay. Go ahead. We'll look

[Speaker 0]: at this until we get our

[Megan Smeaton (DCF Financial Director)]: Yes. It's sort of a high level depiction of the changes from the 'twenty six budget as passed versus our proposed GovRAC state fiscal year 'twenty seven budget. And we broke it out between one time and base appropriations as we're utilizing them somewhat differently between the two state fiscal years. So we've been funding emergency housing, which is the hotel motel program, with one time funding, as well as an $8,000,000 base appropriation for some time now. And so we're representing that as a decrease next year for the emergency housing in the one time appropriation and the base. But then you'll see significant increases elsewhere in the budget for different types of shelter supports. And so we did send this in an email, as you mentioned. But if you have any questions about that, I'm happy to talk through them now, or we're going to walk through each of the line

[Speaker 0]: items. There we go. So we can walk through the line items. Yeah. Good. Yeah.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: Okay. So for additional shelter capacity, we wanna combine the 5,000,000 carry forward to create shelters. So that's a 10,000,000 I mean, an 11,000,000 total. So 6,000,000 plus the five carry forward. And then we're looking we're hoping for six additional shelters serving approximately 240 households. They would be regionally based on need, approximately 40 households in each shelter. Programming would be determined by need, and there would be mental health services provided in shelters. 250,000 is set for that.

[Speaker 0]: Do you have locations identified? How far along are you in doing this?

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: I have few minutes.

[Speaker 0]: It's Department of Mental Health. In terms of the line item for the mental health services and shelters. We were planning to start with the other staff to help the providers. It's given the amount of people who are without housing in those areas, and then hopefully expand that over time. That two fifty is representative starting those specific areas first in the next minute. That's the mental health side, but the shelters look like it's The actual exception of around six locations, right? I'm going to have really and Megan switch plates for instance. Can just add more chairs to the front too, if that's easier.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: You're going to have a lot of questions for Will.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: We have done preliminary analysis on locations. Over the past few years, we've also worked really successfully with Vermont Housing and Conservation Board to fund the shelters that we've started, again, in the past few years. If we're able to move forward with process slightly where we would do more targeted outreach in our notice of funding. We've had some communities that have just had more internal capacity to respond to some of these funding opportunities. And if we were able to move forward here, we would work slightly differently to do some targeted outreach in some of the communities where we're just not necessarily seeing the capacity that we want. And again, we have some of those preliminarily identified but are continuing to work on looking at the data that we have. We have a number of shelter projects, for instance, that are coming online next year. We want to make sure we're using the latest data when we would target that notice of funding. So you're trying to put these around the state? And you

[Speaker 0]: have some coming so that there's access for people. But you haven't identified these specific six at this point.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: And I think this is where it's a little bit relative to depending on where we end up with this proposal. Because depending on how it's received, that might change which types of shelter or areas that we prioritize.

[Speaker 0]: So they'd be children held?

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: 40 households. Go ahead.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I don't recall hearing this when I was at the agency services. Is there transportation built into the budget so that someone living in an adjacent community but not in that community can actually get there? I'm thinking about the person who tried to walk from Shelbourne to Burlington to the cold weather shelter who died. And I just didn't know if transportation, would be coordination around that.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: So I can speak to what we're doing currently. So currently, in the Housing Opportunity Grant Program, transportation is not a generally allowable cost. And some of this has to do with just prioritizing the funds that we have to make sure that these shelters are adequately staffed and resourced. For the extreme cold weather shelter program, transportation was an allowable request or eligible expense as part of that notice of funding. And so those shelters were able to build transportation into that budget to meet that need. It is not something that we we currently support through the Housing Opportunity Grant program.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: Next, we have the recovery oriented shelter. That's the maintenance of a 12 bed shelter in Burlington, with a targeted opening in March. And then investment in a potential third recovery oriented shelter, which would be jointly administered by BDH. There's one in Barrie too.

[Speaker 0]: So there's an existing one in Barrie, and you're about to open Burlington, and the third one is TBD location, you don't have one yet? Right. Total number of beds would be And the new?

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Well, I can't remember what berries. 13.

[Speaker 0]: Yep, 13. And the new one would have how many? 12. After Burlington, the one after Burlington. So it would be 37 total?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Oh, I'm sorry. I think we would imagine a roughly similar size, but that would depend on the space that they're able to access.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. So how it says investment and potential, third, recovery. And you have $1,200,000 for that. And so how far along are you in your thinking about that? Did you send anything out for notes of funding? No. No,

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: will be starting with Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity funding of that project with one time funds. They're opening in March, and they have that grant agreement in place. We have not done a notice of funding for the third.

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member)]: So how much money say you got $1,200,000 for covered shelter. What proportion of that would be for operations?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: So I would say approximately threefour would go to maintain operations of the Recovery Oriented Shelter in Burlington. And then I think the remaining is where we would want to be putting out an opportunity. And it would be somewhat dependent on what again, what space they have access to in terms of do they need significant renovations, or would they be able to identify a space and just jump into operations? That would probably determine at what point during next year they could start. I don't think we anticipate that they would be able to start the whole year, just given the timing that we need to make sure we go through the budget process before we could issue a notice of funding for this. So roughly 900,000 for Burlington, roughly 300,000 for the facility. Yes.

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member)]: So the new shelter purchase, or again, out of the $300,000 how much would be for operations, and how much would be for acquiring a facility?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: I think that's where, again, we would be flexible to see what the community could provide. Our shelters currently have a mix of both owned spaces and leased spaces. So I think, again, we would be working with our community providers to see what they could bring

[Speaker 0]: online relatively fast. For all these families, we'd be going without reading. Yes, exactly. Right.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I just want to it sounds like that third option, that third recovery shelter would not really come online because 25% of the 1,200,000.0 wouldn't be enough to actually establish a shelter and then operate it for a significant length of time. Is that right? I think it

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: would depend on the timing within the year. I will say that operational costs are much higher in Burlington than they are in the rest of the state when you look at both rent and staff costs. So for instance, the shelter in Berry operates for approximately half of the shelter in Burlington. I think that's another determinant when you look at some of the other communities that might be able to sustain something like this based on their other programming. We would probably anticipate operational costs in Burlington. But yes, it might not. It is unlikely to be the whole year. What built into your budget is sustaining that? That is in our existing HOP based budget as well as in the health department's base budget.

[Speaker 0]: So Burlington would be two since it's coming out in March and have to be funded through it?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: No, the Burlington project, this 1.2 is part of the housing initiative, which could then become based. But it's in it's in this line item. It's the 1.2, whereas the Berry Shelter is just in the other half. It's already operating, but this one is starting in March 2026. You're going

[Speaker 0]: to have to pay for it in 2027. So you're saying their operating costs are included in the FY

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: 'twenty seven housing initiative as part of it?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: The operational costs for state fiscal year 'twenty six are one time funds. And so the operational costs for 'twenty seven is incorporated in this 1,200,000.0

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member)]: This

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: would be base.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: But if I just take a step back and this is for Meg, maybe. I'll tag in MEGAN. Yes, I think what we tried to do and maybe for some people, this is clear. For some people, it's confusing. We tried to put things that had base pressure into more of their standard place in the budget. So for instance, other shelter pressures or extreme cold weather shelter. Those are just in our base budget. And then we tried to call out some of the newer things as this initiative. And I don't know if that's causing confusion. I don't know where Megan went. Oh.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: So yes,

[Speaker 0]: it's our base, it's $1,200,000 and it's built into the HOT budget. Goes part of the HOT budget and some of it's going to go to maintenance of Burlington, some of it's going to go to an investment to be determined in the third place maybe. Doesn't feel like it's enough money on that slide. When you staff a shelter, how many staff are in a shelter, Tina?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: It depends on the size and the physical layout of the space. I think a general baseline is that for most shelters again, this varies depending on the population and the setup. Range. I think you would see one to two staff on-site all the time. As the shelter gets bigger, that number of staffing is increasing, especially during the day. And so for these shelters, we're seeing one to two staff on at a time. They are smaller. We are seeing these as slightly higher barrier shelter, except for folks who are in recovery. So they have less of a staffing presence than something that might be more high barrier, but they're also new. And so it's a new model, we're continuing to work through and also make sure that we have services on-site. And so for instance, CVOEO is working with the Howard Center to make sure they have a clinician there. So that also adds to some of the cost of the program.

[Speaker 0]: Right. Well, that would make sense to me, because we're offering wraparound services, other services to people who are at the shelters. So the staff are equipped or trained for offering other services, but they need to move on to the next place. Okay. Let's see. Okay.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: I think that I failed to mention that we met with community partners, community action agencies, and municipalities, and we talked about what they were seeing and what they needed. And the proposal some is based on what they said was a definite need. And recovery shelter was one, and then the next one is the medically vulnerable shelters or sheltering. And that would be Dale administered shelter or shelters, and it may serve approximately 60 people. It would include case management, personal care, and skilled nursing. I don't know if you have questions.

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: I'm sorry, I need to go back and ask a simple question.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So these are going to be shelters that are state run shelters in conjunction with community groups? Or is this going to be like, so in Barrie, are you working directly with Good Sam? Or are these now going to be state shelters?

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: These are the recovery oriented. Those are not state. They're community based shelters.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Okay, so you are funding organizations. Okay, it just made it sound like it was a state owned or state run or sheltered. Thank you.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Thank you for clarifying.

[Speaker 0]: Dave had a question. Sorry, Dave's up with you too. Thank you.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Just to be clear, is this one shelter that can serve up to 60 people? Or are we trying to embed into the various shelters capacity to serve the medically vulnerable?

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: I think what's really beautiful is our partners from Dale are here. So, Angela Deputy Commissioner Smith Sheng is here from Dale. And you want to come up and talk about this?

[Angela Smith-Dieng (Deputy Commissioner, DAIL) [time-bound override]]: I think our ideal for representative community is that we would have some dedicated shelter capacity for this population to be able to embed the specific services that they need. So ideally having some capacity in the north part of the state and also in the Southern part of

[Speaker 0]: the state,

[Angela Smith-Dieng (Deputy Commissioner, DAIL) [time-bound override]]: because we're hearing about the need for the autopsy and the autopsy. In this transition side, we're also thinking that we need to better get services in

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: At some point, I don't want to break the flow of your presentation, but at some point what would help me, I'm trying to follow the dollars and you know, that guy get confused so easily, if you could just help me understand how a homeless person, a husband, a wife and a child just lost their apartment because their landlord wants to go into short term rental, no longer renting to them. How would that little family access help? What would it look like for them when it's good for you to do that? Would you help me with that?

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yes, thank you so much. So

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: then we'll move on to family sheltering. Oh, there's another one that's Right,

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, following what David asked for, when you're talking about medically vulnerable, you're looking at things like skilled nursing, things like that. These are high touch individuals with great needs. Before you get into the families, can you explain a little bit as to how you find them, how you serve them, how do you get them to help in the shelter?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Yeah, and I think, again, we can talk to hear from Gail. So these are folks who are, right now, just accessing other shelters or general assistance emergency housing and not necessarily always having their needs met. So I don't want to imply that folks can't access shelter right now. But do you want to speak to that? Right, so they would

[Speaker 0]: be coming into the system

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: in all of the ways that they're trying to identify on the street or being immediately evicted. They might call the AAA, the Area Agency I'm using, they might call or connect with coordinated energy. It could be identified in a number of different places, and this will have a specific screening process to identify those that meet the criteria for the medically vulnerable shelter. So they could be in another, they could be coming from another shelter where be

[Speaker 0]: able to have more of that in services. You.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: And then family sheltering would be 7,900,000.0, utilize family designated hotels across seven districts, approximately two forty rooms. There would be limited services positions that are in ESD rate to work in the hotels. It would be a motel coordinator. The leveraged services may include hireability, DOL, parent child centers, Vermont chronic care initiatives, substance use disorder treatment, designated agencies. The authorized stays would be based on need and a case plan, and they would have housing navigators, and those would be community based. Honest question.

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: Not to interrupt, but just to, I assume, you know, we've designated hotels here over time, Peter, we've been using here with the Yes, sorry. Know, it's all right,

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: it's just hard. You can't use it in lower. Use your voice. Sorry.

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: Use my

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: voice, how's

[Speaker 0]: that? Great. So,

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: yeah, we've been using hotels here for some time. Here we have a list of those places here. You would you be changing the list of those based on what they would be able to accommodate? Family sheltering?

[Speaker 0]: Would you have to seek other hotels to serve that initiative? I think we would wanna be strategic about where they were.

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: That was my next

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: point Yes. As So that we would keep the kids near their school districts, which is a primary, that would be one of the reasons we would want them to be safe. I think Miranda is on, and she could talk more about the.

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: Ma'am? Okay. Good morning. For the record, Miranda Gray, ESD Deputy Commissioner. Apologies for not being with you. I'm under the weather. We would be using our current hotels, and that's approximately, globally, we have about 70 that we work with. Right now, we have 12 designated hotels for families, and this would be adding staffing to try to give it more of a shelter feel, Someone that would be helping with the rules and ensuring that there were rules that they have similar into shelters and helping people connect with resources because we've heard that that continues to be a problem. We have tried to make sure that there are some, but as noted here, we have a lack of hotels in certain areas, one being the Northeast Kingdom, where we haven't been able to achieve this yet, just because if we designated a hotel for families, then we wouldn't have capacity for anybody else. But it is something that we continue to look at how we could bolster either by having a family designated hotel kind of for sheltering now or is there desire or the ability to do a family shelter in that community area?

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: Thank you. I'll just follow-up with a couple of items here. That's one concern I would have. Is it just certain places in Vermont, whether it's Northeast Kingdom, maybe Southeast Kingdom, like, geez, we're repeating about that a little bit here. They're just rural places where we just don't have easy access. Distance is a huge issue. Just to echo what representative Billie was sharing here about transportation, getting a family there. All of a sudden, you know, something were to occur, they needed this opportunity. So I would just encourage all of us to kind of think about the transportation piece of this potential initiative here.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, I just, the leverage services like the parent child funds, I'm wondering, is there money built into the budget then to fund those services? Or is the assumption that they already have the funding that they need to do that? It strikes me that this is an additional responsibility.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: These Some are Are you the parent child center specifically? Yeah.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: They're state agencies, I don't know how that works. But children child centers, from my perspective, really struggle to make ends meet and introducing another responsibility and putting them, I mean they're very close to families, many of the families that would be served through these shelters. I'm just wondering, is there money built into the budget to support their extra work?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: No, the budget does not include additional work. I think some of this is the role that the motel coordinator would play, as Miranda said, in terms of assessing the needs of that array of families at the shelter and then being able to target, are there opportunities to bring folks in or not? So for instance, if they see trends of, oh, we have 24 families here, 90% are not currently employed and looking for work, we could work specifically with hireability to bring services on-site. Or 90% of the families staying here have kids under six. That's quite a bit. Maybe we could work with the parent child center to see if they could do a parent group or how to leverage those resources. So I think that's one of the reasons for the limited service position to dive in, both to see what are the needs of the family and then what are the community resources that could be leveraged, recognizing that there may be challenges depending on the motel and the service provider, but again, the need for that coordination role. So linking to existing

[Speaker 0]: services. Often, which may create more work for those groups. They part of your conversation when you met with people to talk about this whole program, PCCs? Met with parent

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: child center, but they weren't part of a particular

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: In fairness, some of these families may already be working with community action or parent child centers. But my question is, should we as policy makers consider asking the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, who likely already have projects in the queue, but to dedicate a certain allocation, a certain portion of their appropriation to pay for the remodeling or construction of shelters that you're envisioning?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Going back the investments, I think that they would probably argue, and I think we would also point out not wanting to have an impact on, I think, what you brought up earlier, representative, in terms of their ability to continue to invest in long term housing options. So I think that is just a dynamic to

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: But it wouldn't be forever. It would be until the stock that's necessary was built. I'm trying to think in my community, I know some of you may have visited it in Hyde Park, which is adjacent to Lawrenceville, Vermont Housing Conservation Board and other funding packages help build the Lamoille community house, which if you ever get the opportunity, that's when I'm thinking of these things, I'm thinking of something like that, privacy and high quality and a lot of nice aesthetics, etcetera, to build and promote decency wherever you can. And they did it there and I understand that took, it was in the queue for a couple of years, but I'm just trying to think if there's a way during this crisis to leverage some of our already existing, excuse me, resources pivot into something like this. Just noodle on that.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Yeah, thank you. And I think, again, we really appreciate their partnership and they have done a great job and continue to really help us with a lot of these projects. Think, again, we don't want to necessarily take long term housing projects offline. And so that's where we have our one time ask. But of course, that's something that we can follow-up with. I'm sure they would be happy to come and speak to as well.

[Speaker 0]: I think we have some other people with thoughts. Tom, and then Fifth.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yeah, David, to your point, BHGB does invest money into shelters. It's usually on a project by project basis. The issue with the BHGB and how they handle the money that they the money that they use never pays for a whole project. They have to work with partners, just like you explained in Lamoille. So they do have a commitment. And they've been asked this year after year to make sure that there's a commitment to working with organizations to make sure that shelters are taken care of if a project comes forward that is financially viable and that responds to a community need. That's kind of their model for it. And so I know that in years past, when asked to take a certain amount of money, they're generally from the property transfer tax, which is being fully funded statutory give is being fully funded this year. They split that between conservation and housing. And then that housing money goes into projects that are either first money in feasibility studies or last money in, and they work with those organizations. So they would I would imagine that they would be reluctant to say x amount of dollars goes into one specific program. They have been on the forefront of funding and helping local organizations take care of that. But I understand your question about dedicating a certain amount of money, whether it comes from VHCb's statutory give or whether it comes from any of the one time money that they've received over the years.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: I was chuckling, madam chair, because they've always been uncomfortable every year when I suggest this. He's trying. Somehow, you never know.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Two for me on this committee. Yeah,

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I think that I don't want to take us down a long and winding road. Lily, I'd love to meet with you to talk about ESD staffing vision and why some shelters will be run by community based organizations, why we have ESD workers at the family shelters. And I'm just raising that as an issue because many of the shelters that exist are, in fact, run by community based organizations that have those networks in the community. And so, I think that both in human services and in this committee raised a question about those 21 positions and what they would be doing and why they should be as ESB folks versus representatives from the organizations that are working directly with many of these folks.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: I would like to respond to it a little bit. I know you don't want to go down a long and winding path. So these would be still using the hotels and motels, and we would be using them differently. And what we know from the meetings that we've had with community partners is that and what we've learned is they're not safe currently. And there aren't the same type of rules that there are in the shelters. And There's no presence there of any staff person who could help navigate the system a little bit and make sure that the rules are being adhered to. It makes sense to have an economic services staff person in there. They would administer a program or act as these coordinators. They know the services, they know the partners that they would be connecting them with, and they would help move them through this system. So in our mind, it does make sense, and a deeper conversation probably should happen, but I would include Miranda Gray in that.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: All right.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: Okay. And then next one is domestic violence. That'd be $500,000 That increases investments to statewide coordination of emergency shelter services to survivors of domestic violence, average of about 17 households, over 6,000 bed nights, managed by community providers based on safety needs and shelter capacity and creates one statewide approach. And then natural disaster, that would be 292,000. Currently, AHS is providing case management, and this will allow greater collaboration with reduced burden on population being served. And it's an average of approximately 10 households, or 3,650

[Speaker 0]: bed nights. And they would be located where?

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: The people? In the motels. So,

[Speaker 0]: I guess I do have a question here. I'm showing my ignorance on here. What happens to the eighty days thing? Are they all limited to eighty days? No. That all changes? Not for those? For all the people we've talked about. The families, the recovery, the medically vulnerable, etc. There's not a limit at this point. Is that correct? That's correct.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: However, with the next slide, we do note that

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: This is the traditional GA with modified eligibility, utilizes temporary overflow, 10,000,000 for that. And this would be a continued safety net for state fiscal year 'twenty seven. It would serve approximately three twenty seven households. And it would be utilized when shelters aren't available, and there would be modified eligibility.

[Speaker 0]: So the shelters are filled up. Is that why it would be unavailable? Or the only one available is in Bennington and I'm in Burlington or something? Correct. And tell me more about modified eligibility, like you said.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: The criteria would be age 65, medically vulnerable, and families that are not able to get into the specific shelters and pregnant persons.

[Speaker 0]: Write this down, I can't write that. That too

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: would be eligible? Yes. Could you repeat it again? 65. Medically vulnerable. Yep.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: Families that are not able to get into the specific shelters that we've talked about and pregnant persons.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Domestic violence, same thing if

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: If they were unable to get into the and it was safe.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: If I may, could

[Speaker 0]: share

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: with us, compared to what we have today, what the differences are? Is there anyone who wouldn't be eligible, who is eligible today?

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: We can provide Doctor. Feltus. Short answer is, know, everyone who's available today will have space to

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member)]: be able

[Speaker 0]: to come and make sure.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Anne, thank you. How did you arrive at the 03/27 number? Is that just a calculation based on the other availability, what might be left over based on current trends?

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: Just a

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: specific number. I didn't know. No.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: It more aligns to the actuals when you consider the number of family households actuals and the other ones that we talked about. Again, it is kind of that balanced number of that to get to where we actually are today, or have been throughout April to December this past year.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Thank you. And is this just for budgetary planning purposes, meaning if we ended up at 400, would we say no, we've passed the three twenty seven, you can't get in?

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: Well, it's important as we think about our budget and funding committee that we do have some predictability. So yes, that will be the ceiling.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: They present a budget based on that, but the law wouldn't prohibit John from getting in.

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: He was three twenty He 20 He was three twenty eight when

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: he get in? I'm just trying to clarify, does that mean once we

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: That is what we're saying with a traditional GA that there would be a cat, less different things today.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Okay, I'm just trying to understand that.

[Speaker 0]: So you raise a good point, Dave, and so I'm wondering, with this whole proposal, how many people are you assuming are homeless? So I'm still wondering what the assumption is at the beginning of how many homeless people there are in Vermont and how many we're serving.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: The large part on the right would show us serving about 25,000,000.

[Speaker 0]: People not households it's a it's

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: a mix based on the different forms, rules, belts, and opinions okay

[Speaker 0]: so individuals and households that's correct Go ahead.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Sorry, I don't ever like starting with but. Realistically, given what it takes to put together some of the shelters, build the capacity that you're talking about, not all of these would become online in FY27.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: So for instance, that family shelter option, that's really and I think if you note on that slide, we're talking about family sheltering there. That's leveraging the hotel as a transition period of time. And so that's really where so those, for instance, bad ideas, because of what you've raised, is that we wouldn't be able to bring that much capacity online with a brick and mortar shelter. And so we see the need for a transition period leveraging motels, and we're proposing to do that in a different way for that population.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I would just ease out the recovery and the six other shelters. Just overall, there's lead time that one needs in order to develop these and I guess I'm having trouble understanding who will be unhoused essentially next year and how many people are likely to be. Even if we were working 20 fourseven to try to get everything off the ground, and I'm not quite sure how well defining disability, that would be helpful to know. I think the governor's executive order reached, you know, applied to like 400 households and there are 200 medically vulnerable, 60 people. And I know they want to embed that capacity within some of the other shelters. I guess I'm just, I'm trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together in my own head and it does still strike me that we are going to lose significant capacity in this FY27. And there are a lot of folks who will not fall into the categories that you mentioned who would be eligible for the traditional GAA. A homeless veteran, for example, know, able-bodied but doesn't qualify in your definition of disabled. Anyway, is there Have you done kind of projections, realistic projections about, okay, well, how many people really will we

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: kind of lose?

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: How many people will lose housing under this plan in the coming year?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: We have a breakdown that we can send as a follow-up. I don't believe it's in the slide, but we And can share that doesn't include again, I think next year, anticipation of that two forty is that we're building that capacity, and then they would come online. But we can send you category by category a chart that we have as a follow-up. Great.

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member)]: My question goes back to asking about operational costs. Then thinking about it, folks aren't actually managing these places. They're giving grants to nonprofits or designated agencies or whatever that do the work, right? Am So I correct?

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: For hotels or for the shelters? Shelters, yes.

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member)]: That's correct. The shelters. So when we ask you something like, what's the operation cost? Can't possibly know because it's their operation cost unless they report something to you, which I don't know if there's any requirement for them

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: to report something to you. Oh, is.

[Speaker 0]: Yes, there is. So if

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member)]: we're asking impossible questions for things that you don't know about.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: We have an annual notice of funding opportunity for our Housing Opportunity Grant program, which is the primary funding source for the state to support emergency shelters. And so that's where we look at their budgets very line by line. My team does an incredibly thorough job in reviewing those applications. And then we award, and they report to us quarterly on their financial spending and then an annual financial budget. So yes, while we cannot predict exactly what they may be, we do have some historical data and averages that we can give us as a ballpark. But it is correct that some of this would be to be determined once the rubber hits the road. So in there, it could be varying based on different organizations, whatever. Exactly. Maybe if you

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member)]: used AI on the whole mass of it, then you could come up with some challenges and what it costs.

[Speaker 0]: Just one clarification, please, back on this particular slide. These are people, either households or individuals, not money. You're correct, it's not money, it's not a money It's not a money cycle, these are people and now you're shifting. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I didn't have lots of money

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: to, but yeah, I'm equivalent. Okay,

[Speaker 0]: so we're back at, we talked about modified eligibility and you'll send us some more information about that. That would be great. And then adverse weather.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: So this would be 3,600,000. It would serve approximately five thirteen households. Based on historical data, we figure eighty seven days, and it would be weather dependent.

[Speaker 0]: How are we defining adverse weather effects?

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: I believe Brian DeGray is on the line, he can talk about the specific weather criteria. That would be great to a previous weather criteria.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Okay. Did

[Speaker 0]: you hear that, Miranda?

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: I did, thank you. So we would be going back to the adverse weather conditions that we have used pre pandemic, and so it's a combination of negative 20 degrees or a combination of higher temperature but with precipitation in the mix, and so it is also variable to location around the state.

[Speaker 0]: The only thing I really understood is they can't come unless it's minus 20 degrees. Is it Or

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: And I don't Yeah, I appreciate the communication here. And again, we're dealing with there's only so many words in the English language to describe some of this. So adverse weather conditions is the language that we use for the economic services motel based program to expand capacity at the motels. That has its own definition. So for instance, right now, that's a seasonal operation. As Miranda mentioned, historically, operated at that other threshold. This is separate from the extreme cold weather shelter program, which is a separate I believe it's $1,300,000 as a separate line item. So the span of what we're doing this year, where it's the physical shelters that are operating, as you said, on those coldest nights

[Speaker 0]: with a mandatory activation of negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit and optional activation of zero. The extreme cold weather is the minus 10 optional at zero. So I don't understand why we have an adverse and an extreme. Think the reason

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: no, and again, right, there's only so many words to

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: describe We the have two

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: different things. Yeah, I think the reason has to do with how we use and can access the resources. So for instance, at the extreme cold weather shelters, many of them could not operate more frequently. They don't have the staff capacity. They don't have the space capacity. So we're trying to layer the resources that we have. And that's why we have different approaches. We would not be able to operate those physical shelters as frequently as we could utilize these hotel rooms as we have done in the past.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: So, thought though, as we build more shelter capacity, and that would mean there'd be less people in motels. There would still be meaning there would be motel capacity, that somebody could say there's no room at the inn, the inn being the shelter, but now you can go into this hotel. Would we do that? Or would we not? Assuming you set whatever the temperature is that you end up on, it's cold enough outside, shelters are full, there are available motels because the people assuming they don't close, would we say, Dave, you and your family can go there for however long the policy is? Would we do that?

[Speaker 0]: Yes. Right? I mean, that's this.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah. Up to three twenty seven. Right?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Okay. And this just would operate more frequently than the extreme cold weather because it's a higher temperature threshold.

[Speaker 0]: The warmer weather.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Yeah, the adverse weather is.

[Speaker 0]: But you said adverse weather started at minus 20 degrees. I'm thinking of changing

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: that. She did not say it starts at

[Speaker 0]: negative 20 degrees. Okay, That's what we built earlier. So tell us again what constitutes adverse weather since we clearly got that far. I believe it starts at 32 degrees, but I will ask nine to three times. Okay.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: I'm

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: sorry, I have it in front of me now, if you can hear me.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, we can hear Okay.

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: So temperature or wind chill are less than 20 degrees or temperatures are less than 32 degrees with a higher than 50% chance of precipitation projected.

[Speaker 0]: Repeat that, please.

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: Yes, of course. So temperatures or wind chill are less than 20 degrees or temperatures are less than 32 degrees with a higher than 50% chance of precipitation.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, so that's considered adverse weather. That does sound less extreme than the others that. My

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: apologies. Just

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: wondering how this system can work if you're in St. Albans and it falls into that category, you're in Burlington and maybe you're a degree off then over gens. Would think that that would be very difficult to administer and very difficult for those I mean, well, anyway, you're talking about motel rooms in this instance, the adverse weather conditions. I don't know if you would How easy you could book those on a day to day basis. It just seems like an awful lot of work. And to track all of that down from one community to another.

[Speaker 0]: Or do you use what's at the airport? I mean, how do you decide? That's a good question.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: Miranda, do you have anything?

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: Sorry, can you say the last piece again? It is a little challenging to hear all the conversation.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, sorry. I'm just wondering, administratively, I could imagine this is really hard because it fall into that adverse weather condition category in one community, but not in another. If it's day to day, it's the cold weather pieces day to day, then it's hard to activate either the motel or the emergency cold shelter with that kind of turnaround. Guess I'm wondering how administratively you would handle a difference in temperature between, say, White River Junction and Burlington with different communities then have access to adverse weather conditions and others wouldn't?

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: So, when we did this pre pandemic, we used the location of our district office. So we have 12 of those, and then we used the national, the NOA forecast for that town to apply to the whole district office. And we had it up on our website, so saying if we had AUC and then by which locations met the threshold or didn't meet the threshold. So it is something that we are well versed in administering here in ESD, and I think it would be a lot on communication. How do we make sure that people know this as we move forward? Because it would be transitioning to something that we hadn't done for a little bit.

[Speaker 0]: So it's managed by the weather conditions at each district off, that size? Yes. All right, thank you. John?

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: The only thing I was going just share, having worked as a mountain guy for forty plus years, when I bring clients outside for fun things, they're not done housed here, but we work on forecasting weather here, and there's going be fluctuations across the state, north and south and east for the last year, clearly, especially with things like wind chill. And so I don't know up to what degree you can do better than that. It's your best piece of information here, other than it's clearly been, you're looking at actual temperatures here and wind chill factors as So I think that might be the best model we could potentially

[Speaker 0]: Could not use just one location for that?

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Yes, I

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: just have to use one location, because between here and the Northeast Kingdom, it can have temperature fluctuations, as I've shared with everybody here, and they can just view what it is, it's just a different geometry,

[Speaker 0]: elevation kind of things. So this we're bringing back or did we stop doing this? We're bringing it back. Yes. Okay. And this will be in the hotels. Just trying to get my head around. That's the assumption about five thirteen households. Yes. And is that running December 1 March 30? Miranda?

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: I think in the past, it wasn't necessarily that we had I feel like December 1 might not have been the date, And I would have to go and look and see where did we Where was the date that started when we were looking at the eighty seven days? As we know, we have Our temperatures have fluctuated, the weather has fluctuated, so I can look and see when, if it is December 1 or if it had started a little bit later.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, so I'd like to know what the beginning and end dates are for this program. Thank you.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: That just

[Speaker 0]: Yep. It was 12/01/2026 through 03/31/1927 at 11:00. Okay. Great, thank you. Now we're at cold weather,

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: is the next one. And these are emergency cold weather shelters for 1,300,000. We're currently supporting capacity for 167 individuals. We're hoping to expand to other communities in state fiscal year 'twenty seven. It would be day to day weather dependent and community based shelters. And rental assistance, 1,400,000.0. That would serve approximately 80 households. It's targeted at households experiencing homelessness with an average benefit of 14,800.0 annually. The idea is households are paying 30 percent to 40% of their adjusted income for rent and utilities.

[Speaker 0]: Is this a new program?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Yes. Yes. Yes, I think, again, to the discussion earlier, we want this to be more than just a sheltering effort, but really housing effort and moving folks out of emergency housing. I think we really echo that sentiment of, well, we want to make sure we have a place for people to go. We want shelters to be brief and frequent, nonrecurring. So I think rental assistance is a real key component of addressing this dynamic. Some of you may have heard the three legged stool analogy. You need rental assistance units and services for some households to really help them attain and maintain housing. So this is a part of that program, and it would be a new baseline item for us.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: And so how would this work? We have a program that we just started a couple of years ago, which was an upstream eviction prevention with tenant representation, where the goal was if someone was threatened with eviction due to lack of payment of rent, that there was an attorney from legal aid that would work with usually attorneys from the property owners and landlords in order to resolve the dispute. And then if it's resolved, then there would be a moratorium for twelve months on whether they would be able to be evicted for nonpayment. Again, it doesn't have anything to do with other for cause outside of nonpayment of rent. No cause evictions are still a big deal, especially for people at the lower end of the economic spectrum. So how have the rules been set up for this? Eviction the tenant representation program, which, again, is an eviction prevention program, will run out of money at the September unless we our negotiate it's currently not on the schedule to be refunded yet. How will it work, though? I mean, it's been a successful program in the two counties that it's in, keeping people in their homes, which is obviously homelessness prevention. How have the rules been set up for how this money would be used? I mean, it's 80 households roughly. Is an eviction prevention program, or is it someone who says someone comes in and has to apply for it in a different way?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Yeah, it would not be set up the way that the eviction prevention program is set up. It is targeted rental assistance. So think of a voucher, so regular monthly rental assistance for people who are exiting homelessness to help them address the rent burden that they would otherwise face in getting into units. Even some of the more affordable VHIP units are still at a price that's hard for folks who are lower social security, for instance, to attain. So this is rental assistance. I think in the past, we've had some one time funding to do what's considered a rapid rehousing program, which is three to twenty four months of rental assistance. I think we recognize that due to federal pressures, we're seeing the need that sometimes you may have to go beyond twenty four months. But the goal is that this still is a bridge to a permanent voucher. So it's not a one time rental arrears program or specific eviction prevention. It is really targeted to folks who are trying to exit homelessness but cannot afford a rental unit without rental assistance on an ongoing basis, but again, on a bridge basis.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: One of the major fault carriers, unless there is assistance like a Rapid Rehab of Me, is the and the focus on not just private apartments, but public apartments as well is first month to last month security. Mhmm. And is that what this would be used for? Because that without that, then they can't even get in to be able to be in a position to pay rent.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Yeah. In prior iterations of, again, that rapid rehousing program, we did allow for security deposit as an allowable cost. I will also just say this is not intended to replace our hot financial assistance, which is direct client based financial assistance, which also does allow for security deposits. This really is that rental assistance. But again, we have allowed security deposit in the past. And I think we would follow probably those guidelines for this as well.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: And this is roughly the same clientele. Actually, you're saying 30% to 40% of adjusted. Hop is for 30% less, right?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: I would have to pull up the rental over year guidance. Hop is that financial assistance is short term, so it's ninety days or less, three months or less, whether that's

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: 30% of the I'm saying 30% of AMI is what people HOPP only works for people who would go up 30% of AMI. Is that right?

[Speaker 0]: I would have to But

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: that also, I just want to clarify, that's short term rental assistance. So it's not whereas this is not short term rental assistance, which is ninety days or less, whereas HOP has that requirement. So that's an important distinction when it comes to financial assistance. So how long is this for? How long could one of the 80 households get this benefit? What we would be working with is that households would have a housing plan, working with housing case managers. I think in the past, we have been able to see one or two years of assistance was enough to bridge to a voucher. I think we would monitor that. I think it could be two to three years. I think we would have some analysis that we're constantly doing to keep a pulse on the federal picture and help move folks onto those longer term options.

[Speaker 0]: So you're hoping that they will get Section eight housing. This is like a bridge to Section eight housing. Is that what would

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: be For some folks, it

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: would be. For some folks, it might be a bridge to they might be able to increase their income during this time and may no longer need it. Again, I think we would have individualized plans for households to make sure that this can be a bridge to what makes sense for them.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Just a clarification, they can have vouchers, they can have qualified for Section eight vouchers, and this will be paying their 30% that they would need to pay rent? Or is this for the people who don't have vouchers?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Right. This would be a voucher until they're able to hopefully get onto a permanent voucher. So it's a state funded rental voucher.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: It's not a Section eight.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: It doesn't cover the 30% that's needed for Right, which is what

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Okay. So that's what happens with the voucher now. So it it would operate the same way as a Housing Choice Voucher to some extent in terms of what the household pays. Hopefully, they would be able to get on to another voucher.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: We have or we had in the past when there were voucher issues ten plus years ago when there was nothing but budgetary reconciliation. And we did a twelve month state oriented voucher. Is this different than that as well? That's not federally funded?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: That's correct. This would be in addition to that.

[Speaker 0]: So one other question, because somebody else brought up HOP. HOP has some stuff, and this is a different program. But are you funding HOP in FY 'twenty seven at the same level you funded HOP in 'twenty six? No. We're proposing approximately a $6,000,000 increase to HOP

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: to maintain some shelter investments that have been made this year or that we anticipate coming online. Okay. So that breakdown of HOP It'd be really helpful. Yeah, I'll make sure you have the award summary. It's okay. Yeah, we'll make sure to send the award summary, which does identify which is one time versus base funding.

[Speaker 0]: What is sheltered services or direct services to clients and what is shelter operation?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Yeah, you can take a look and then let me know what follow-up questions you have. And that way, we can try to get

[Speaker 0]: you a point if that works for you.

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: Okay. Let's continue. Then

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: finally, enhance case management for $1,300,000 Provide case management to as many households and shelter, shelter like options as resources allow. Coordinate and standardize outreach and case management across the state and across programs. Standardize the workflow and supplement existing capacity.

[Speaker 0]: So you mentioned earlier on and said, see, there was staff, but see, the budget or whatever. So can you tell me how many new staff positions you are looking to have in this whole project

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: across the agency? So we're not requesting any leading positions.

[Speaker 0]: We have funds for existing limited service positions that have been funded with one time money. We're requesting that those positions be funded in the base appropriation moving forward, and that portion of that would shift to be more focused on supporting the family shelters on the patient, and then we would have remained nine positions to support the eligibility with determinations for ESD. I think I'd like to see a breakout of the 21 and what their position, you're proposing your positions are and what their job is going to be, maybe where they're located. Then are they all filled now? It's red, the minutes are filled.

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: No, not all positions are filled.

[Speaker 0]: Do you have any idea of these 21 which are filled? How many are filled?

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, ESD)]: I believe that we have three vacancies.

[Speaker 0]: So 18 are filled and three vacancies.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Can I go back and just answer a question that I realized I didn't answer for Representative Stevens regarding the HOP Financial Assistance eligibility? So it is folks who meet the HUD definition of homelessness and then have a household income so literally homeless or those who meet the other aspects of the definition are at risk of homelessness definition and have a household income of 50% AMI. And I can send you that in an email if that's helpful. Okay.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: The numbers shift everywhere. So HOPWA is always mean, someday I'd like a chart to make sure that we have the numbers, because some place for 50%, extremely low is 30%. So thank you for the clarification.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Yes, thanks for the question.

[Speaker 0]: Dave, you had a question earlier on that you wanted to

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: help me understand how a homeless person would get help. Who would they call, who would they see, etcetera.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Sure, I think that

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: folks have the

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: ability to, right now, approach shelters directly and apply that way. Folks right now can call and access benefits through economic services. We also then, in communities, have lead agencies that help as a front door. When folks come in, if that's their point of entry, there's an initial screening of, do you need immediate services? So for instance, if that person is looking for shelter, there would be an immediate discussion of, Okay, let's explore what options we have in our community right now, help you get connected. And then let's come back and do a longer term assessment about what are your longer term housing goals. So I think those dynamics would still be in place where folks have the ability to approach a project directly, but then also leverage the housing navigators that we have in a community to help make sure they know what resources are available.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Okay. I can follow that. Thank you.

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: So the updated version is now on our website, all correct? It has all the numbers and the chart will get a little bit more of a breakout of the pop shelter funding, and there's sort of a lot TBD here. Mean, you have concepts of plan, as it were, is for medically vulnerable, for recovery centers, for families. So it feels like they're targeting the people that really are going to need our help. But there's still a lot to be determined in how we do all this, I guess. Dave, you look like you want to

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: say something? Well, we've already touched on it, but in my mind, I'm decide, trying would it make more sense to put 1,300,000.0 in case management into 21 state employees, or into community based organizations? And that's just something I wanted to update on. Think the pros and cons.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Was aware of that, the $1,300,000,000 for instance case management is not for the 21 limited service positions, that's a separate

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member)]: it community based?

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Yes. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: So that money would be going to community partners, the $1,300,000 to do that case management? Who's doing the case management?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: You would work with community based organizations. I don't think it would necessarily be potentially only one type of provider.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: Okay. But the $1,300,000

[Speaker 0]: is going out into the community, and that's staying in

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: your budget. And just a follow-up. And the 21 physicians are in the GA line. Right? That is 2.7 something. And the 75, well, 500 ks is in the GA for housing and the rest of it is for administration and it's those positions.

[Speaker 0]: Am I right, Megan? So, And so the money is not an ESC benefit with the limited systems division, so it's an

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: independent appropriation.

[Speaker 0]: GA is a separate appropriation in that bucket, so you would be looking at our ups down because it would be in the first section, not the GA section. But on the table that we showed at the beginning of this presentation, is in the GA line and it's associated with ESD, and so that line has the 2,500,000.0 to $3,700,000 in there, and $515,000 of that is for contracted hotels, and then the remaining is the administrator. And it's not just the related services, it's part of our contract that we are actually procuring and we should procuring for that call center. As a result of all these proposed changes in your housing initiatives, are you going to be serving more people, fewer people, or the same number of people?

[Lily [last name unknown] (AHS/OEO official)]: So I think one thing that I would just say is that this is a very dynamic group of folks who move in and out. And so sometimes the capacity does not necessarily reflections on coming in and out when you have the bed nights. And I think in the table we gave you, you can see by which category. For some, it's up. For some, it's less. And then you can see those totals.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: And I think you're talking about beds. But we're also talking about services and trying to get people out of homelessness. And we can't lose that piece of it. Instead of just having a room for someone to sleep in,

[Speaker 0]: we want to move them out. Right. So exactly. That's exactly what I wanted do. So I'm probably going to ask them the question wrong. Because we do want

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: to move people out, which means you could have a

[Speaker 0]: whole lot of people come through. So there's the flow of it. But I think what I'm really asking about in my question is about capacity on any one night.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: I think, like that graph shows in the beginning, it's, I think, a little bit more moving forward. It's a little bit more. Right, but the whole initiative is to change how we do things and change how folks respond, communities respond, and make sure we're doing better, and creating a system that makes people move through this system and improves conditions all around. But I think if you're asking the beds, it's that first graph that shows it's just they're different. And

[Speaker 0]: so when you talk about our goal, what sort of metrics do you have in place to measure the success of what you're doing? How will we

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: know That's in a different PowerPoint. Let me

[Speaker 0]: We like to ask these sort of accounts of the question about how do we know our money's going to the right thing and we

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: speak most effectively. Do you have off top of mind?

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: There are five specific metrics that we identified overall high level macro metrics. One was the number of people that we need for case management that we want to track. Obviously we work out to increase another one is the number of the average days if somebody's in shelter or the shelter life option. We obviously want that to decline and track deaths from unsheltering. And then now I just want grab a pen and tracking the number of people that move into permanent housing solution and obviously we want that to increase. And as we've talked through with HHS, another metric that they have requested and we are supportive of is the number of people that re enter.

[Speaker 0]: Yes, that's great. It'd be great if you could send us that. It looks like you actually have a PowerPoint or a slide. That would be great to have. But tracking the number of deaths you're to have fewer hotel rooms, so that should go down anyway. But that of leads me to wonder about maybe fewer deaths of people that aren't in shelters that didn't make it to shelters. Are you

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: tracking any of that? It works with the department and folks to track that as best as we can. It's certainly not to the level that we see people talk to.

[Speaker 0]: Well, I'm sure you can't as much, but yeah, I would hope we'd be keeping an eye on that as well. I think about that person who was trying to walk through shelter and was so far away, so this will help eliminate those.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Do we know what the total dollar amount is of the package, the presentation?

[Speaker 0]: Is that different? Yeah, that's on the second slide. Think Autumn has now posted the new so there's a bunch of components on page two or three, Dave. Thank you. It looks like it's $82,600,000 for FY27. So I wanted to clarify that that's including existing HOT budget. I know it's not all new money. We're not freaking out about that budget. I think it's about the same amount as H91 was. Are we thinking the same thing? Yes. And this year, it's proposed to be $77,000,000 and next year it's 82,000,000 The usual concern about the base, the more you add to the base, the more ongoing expenses we have. But I also understand why you're doing that, but it's really part of

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: the challenge. Okay, any other

[Speaker 0]: questions for anybody? Anything else you guys want to let us know before we let you go?

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: It's helpful, thank you.

[Speaker 0]: It's very helpful, we appreciate you applying and we'll look forward to getting a few more things from you. Fantastic, thank you. So Mindy, let's see where we are here. Do have a quick question? Someone from

[Unknown AHS presenter (slides/budget)]: the back at 01:00

[Speaker 0]: is the Bose Shibra Z board.