Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Welcome everybody back to House General and Housing. It is still Thursday, January 15. The month is half over, if you can believe it, of 2026, and where we are now is we're taking up the question of a proposal to make a recommendation to the Appropriations Committee with respect to what goes into the Budget Adjustment Act. And there are certain sources of funds in the BAA and it's up to the Appropriations Committee to determine what to do, how to use that money. And one of the major issues that the state is facing because of the federal funding synched scheme is a kind of slow we've experienced a slow but significant decline in the number of Section eight vouchers, which support the Section eight voucher makes up the difference between the ability of a tenant to pay and what the market rate is. And that the number of such vouchers have been in decline, as Chris Donnelly will probably explain, all of our local housing authorities, such as the Champlain Housing Trust, for example, or Downstreet, Rural Edge, etcetera, that they rely on knowing that their projects will be financially supported by these Section eight vouchers. So, what you have in front of you, I pass out, is a draft letter with two house appropriations, and what I'd like to do is I'd like to hear testimony, we're going to hear testimony from Kathleen Burke, Executive Director of VSAJ, from two directors of local housing authorities, and from Chris Connolly of Champlain Housing Trust. I'd also like to recognize that one august member of the committee, Tiff Bloomley of the Appropriations Committee, is here in the room with us, and if we go too far astray, she can whip us with a wet noodle as we need to. So, idea, what I would like us to do is I'd like all of you to ask whatever questions you desire of the witnesses, and then I'd like to bring it to you for determination as to whether or not we should send this letter to the Appropriations Committee. It's not our decision, it's their decision as to whether to appropriate. So with that, Kathleen, take it away.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Thank you. For the record, my name is Kathleen Burke, I'm the Executive Director of Vermont State Housing Authority, and I'm pleased to be invited back once again today to talk to you about this very important issue. My testimony today requests support of this committee, through the Budget Adjustment Act to establish a $5,000,000 voucher contingency fund to prevent the involuntary termination of households from public housing authority, housing choice voucher programs due to federal funding shortfalls. This request builds upon my testimony and materials provided to the House Committee on General and Housing on January 8, as well as several other legislative committees over the past several months. Why this is necessary now. Federal housing voucher funding is chronically underfunded and unpredictable, placing Vermont PHAs at immediate risk of losing vouchers and displacing currently housed families. The is a Public housing authority. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Without state assistance in calendar year 2026, public housing authorities will likely be forced to terminate assistance to comply with federal spending caps. Vermont

[Chris Donnelly (Director of Community Relations, Champlain Housing Trust)]: will

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: lose hundreds of vouchers and millions of federal funds. The state will face higher downward stream costs tied to homelessness and housing instability. The proposed voucher contingency fund is a targeted one time and fiscally responsible tool that allows Vermont to ensure public housing authorities are in a better position this year and next year, prevent avoidable housing instability, protects federal rental assistance already in use, avoids greater downstream costs associated with homelessness and displacement, and supports the creation of affordable housing development here in Vermont. Considerations for this committee. Public housing authorities in calendar year 2025 shortfall are expected to remain in a shortfall situation in calendar year 2026 absent intervention. Final calendar year 2026 allocations are unknown until Congress enacts a full year appropriations bill. Projected federal losses as we understand them today. The House bill projects Vermont to lose 600 vouchers as a part of the 2026 appropriations bill. The Senate bill projects Vermont to lose an additional 300 vouchers as part of the 2026 appropriations bill.

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: Good question. Yes. The

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Senate, is that an additional 300 to the 600, making it 900, or the Senate would be

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: You have two separate bills. You have the House version and you have the Senate version, which are very different from one another. And so one is 600, one is three And can you remind me roughly how many individuals that would be? How many what? Individuals that could be. So, that would be 1,800 individuals under the House bill approximately, and 600 under the Senate bill.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. You said 1,800 people?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: 1,200, I'm sorry, under the House bill. Assuming the average of two person per household, which is the metric. The estimated impact, financial impact to Vermont is somewhere between 3,600,000.0 and 7,200,000.0 in annual federal funding actions.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: 3.6 to what?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: 3.6 to 7,200,000.0. House bills, approximately 3,600,000.0 in loss. The Senate bill, I'm sorry, the reverse. The House bill approximates 7.2, the Senate bill approximates six. Public housing authority reserves previously used to absorb shortfalls are exhausted. Our request today is to support the creation of a voucher contingency fund through the BAA process. The amount requested is $5,000,000 in one time funding to be administered by the agency of administration, accessed by Vermont public housing authorities as needed, used to offset federal housing voucher funding shortfalls that would otherwise result in voucher terminations. Compliance would be subject to HUD, Housing and Urban Development, and Public Housing Authority requirements. If HUD approvals are not provided and terminations are unavoidable, I would recommend that funds may be used for this purpose. Any unused funds would eventually revert back to the general fund. This targeted one time contingency fund provides a necessary safeguard during federal uncertainty, protecting Vermont families, preserving federal rental assistance, and avoiding higher state costs. We respectfully request that you support funding for a $5,000,000 voucher contingency fund and the Budget Adjustment Act.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Please. Why the VA?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Because it's the fastest path forward and the sooner we're able to create a contingency fund, the sooner we're able to protect Vermont residents and protect the loss of additional vouchers to the program.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Just to make sure that I understand it correctly, the amount of money that HUD gives us for Section eight vouchers in a given calendar year is set on the basis of how many activate vouchers there was in the prior year.

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: That's correct.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So what we're trying to do with this one time strategic intervention is to increase the number of vouchers or slow the decrease in the number of vouchers in this calendar year as much as possible in order to increase whatever our allocation is in subsequent calendar years. In other words, decide, HUD decides in the spring how much to give us by looking at the last year. By having more vouchers this year, we'll have more money in future years, and that's what the system does. Correct?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: That is correct.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And then the BAA, the idea of the BAA is the earlier the money is available, the more vouchers we can save this year and thus the more that we'll have in future years. Yes, Tom. And Joe, did you have your hand up?

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah, I did first. Go for it. Okay. Remembering some testimonies last year indicating that there were people, substantial number of people eligible for vouchers that were unable to use them if they could not find a suitable part of them.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's correct.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: How does the government count those? Are those active vouchers or they don't get used cause there's not housing about it? Do they subtract that from what they're making?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: They essentially do. The way that the funding works essentially very simply is our allocation or our budget for next year is based on our spending this year. Okay, the actual Actual spend off the door. Money spent.

[Unknown committee member]: So if it's not rented, it doesn't count. It doesn't count.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. May I ask a question?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Please, Debbie, and then we'll get to the others. Yeah.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yeah. The I just wanted to make sure, like, the people that have section eight now, like, they might have been getting it for the last nine years, section eight vouchers, do they continue, or are they gonna fade away unless we do something?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: They will fade away unless something is done.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Gotcha. Thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Joe, did you have a question? I I just

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I do. I've I've got a just kinda how the system operates. I have, like, an idea of what I how I think it does, but I'm not positive.

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: Sure.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: So for the vouchers, is the voucher and money decided at each voucher's worth x? And if you spend more or less, that's gonna decide if you can use all your voucher?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: It's the funding formula for purposes of renewal for the next year is based on the aggregate of everything that a public housing authority spent the prior year. So for example, we serve approximately 3,500 families in our Housing Choice Voucher program. Each one of those vouchers has their own unique cost associated with it. The renewal formula for the next year takes a look back at the prior year and determines, it's called re benchmarking. What did your housing authority spend the prior calendar year on total voucher costs? Without regard to the number of families served. So our budget last year was $35,000,000 And this is where things get tricky. We're authorized to serve up to approximately 4,300 households. However, that $35,000,000 does not support 4,300 households in practice because as representative Mihaly has used the analogy of the funnel, and I think it's a very good one, over time, there's been an erosion of the maximum amount of funds that public housing authorities are receiving to run their programs. So with the $35,000,000 that we received last year, we were able to serve approximately 3,500 families. On average, yes. About 3,500 families, although we're authorized to serve 4,300 families. If we don't stop this erosion, the way that we stop the erosion is by investing in vouchers. So those expenses are realized as part of our budget this year. If those expenses are realized as part of our budget this year, then they are eligible for renewal on the federal dime next year.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But just as a technical matter, to follow on your question and then I'll bring it back to you, Just as a technical matter, forget about the whole federal funding problem. The voucher, the amount of the voucher is set at the difference between the earning power of a given family and what you know the market rate is for that unit. Correct?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: That's exactly correct.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And it's set annually by you guys.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: It's not

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: set by the tenant. It's set by you guys.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: It's set by the Vermont State Housing Authority and more republican

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, Joe. Back to you.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Maybe I'm not explaining it well. When you get the vouchers, the federal government has a dollar amount tied to every voucher, I'm guessing. Basically, they're all worth $700. If you spend 900 on them, you can only fulfill x number of vouchers now.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well,

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: so are we spending all of our money?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: We're spending all

[Kevin Loso (Executive Director & CEO, Rutland Housing Authority)]: of Because our

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: you can't fill all the vouchers because we have a higher subsidy level.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No. I

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: got one person shaking their head yes.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: We're spending all of our money, and in fact, we didn't have enough money last year to support all of our vouchers in use. In use. In use.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: HUD does not tell us how much to spend on

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: a voucher. Know, I'm just saying when the vouchers come to you, there is a formula for them that is 700 vouchers at $600 apiece. That's the math for how much money you got. You can use you can you can use 700 vouchers. You got money left over and use all your vouchers. But if you subsidize more, you can fulfill less than the equation they're sending you, not the one that you use when they send you. Would that be correct?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: That is correct. However, as part of their re benchmarking process, which is the process that they go through to determine a public housing authority's renewal eligibility for the next year, is they analyzed what your expenses were for your total bachelor program, And then they typically would inflate that by a percentage because housing costs increase over time, subsidy costs increase over time. The problem with the funding formula is twofold. The inflation factor that HUD has applied to your prior year's expense is lower than what our actual inflationary increases are for our subsidy program, for our voucher program. And HUD will go through that re benchmarking process and they'll say, okay, we only have X amount of money to allocate to all public housing authorities around the country. So Vermont State Housing Authority, we're gonna give you 95% of what you need to support your program because that's all the money that we have. And so when they give us 95%, that's a reduction. They're not fully funding our voucher program. And the way that public housing authorities have to manage that is to take cost saving measures, which we have done and we will continue to do. We have to take vouchers that are turned in through attrition, families who no longer need them, we take those offline and we shelve them. And if those strategies don't work, then we're in a situation where we have to terminate families that are receiving assistance from the program. Because we can't spend more than what HUD has allocated to our agency for that calendar year. Okay.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Understood that part. How does this one time I mean The one time will cert I mean, it's just one time money to pay rent. What it is, it's your assistant.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: It's one time money that would go to public housing authorities who need it to stabilize their programs, get those funds in use, So they're expensed as part of this year's budget, if you will. And that allows those one time funds to be eligible for renewal as part of our base allocation the next year. Okay. And it protects families in need.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah. I I get that part of it. I'm just it's kinda as a one time thing. Well,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it's really

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I mean, we're always gonna be falling short of the amount of vouchers. Doesn't matter if we put the money into it this year. Two years from now when you say, we fulfilled all of I don't know what the number was. Sorry. The amount of vouchers you're k. Yeah. Yeah. You can fulfill.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: 4,300 if we had the funds to do it.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: So you come to them and you say, we fulfilled 4,300 vouchers. You're not gonna be able to fulfill 4,300 vouchers because we oversubsidize according to their map calculation, we oversubsidize our vouchers. So the following year, we're gonna be not be able to fulfill all those vouchers anyway.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Well

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: And we'll be in the same

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: I would argue that doing nothing is going to mean that we're going to lose even more vouchers next year.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: In other words, I know, I'm just saying it's a structural problem, but it's not a

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: But this

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: solution, this particular injection is very different from the big problem. In other words, I use the funnel analogy because we don't know what Congress, in its wisdom, is going to dump into the top of the funnel. They could completely screw this program, and we'll face huge problems of thousands of people on the street. But we don't know that, but what we do know is that the bottom of the funnel, which is how much we get, if we increase the size of that funnel once, just one time, that's permanent. It means that we will always get a greater share of whatever they choose to give us future years. That's the key. This is just expanding the funnel once so that next year, let's say we're in 2027 or 2028, and next in 2028, whatever amount of money Congress gives, we'll get more of it because of this injection. We'll face, if they cut the program more, we're going to face that, have to face that issue too, But this particular approach is an effort to see if we can increase the size of the bottom of the funnel once. Could we face the same issue again? Sure.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I think, I don't know, I'm just, I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. I'm just saying Yeah. I think in two years from now, it's gonna be a bigger drop off because we've artificially inflated the top number, we're and gonna fall right back to where we were. So instead of that 4,300 to where we are, we're gonna be saying that we're at, you know, 5,000 to 2,000 now or something like that. Because, structurally, how much we subsidize. Do HUD

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: regulations define do I going to this, do HUD regulations define what the purpose of the voucher is? In other words, somewhere in HUD regulations, is there a definition that the voucher amount should be the difference between fair market value rent and the capability of the family and that's in their regulations?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: It absolutely is. Yes. And here in Vermont, we're considering a state where there's two states left in the country. So if you're receiving public assistance, then what you pay toward your rent is the amount that you receive for shelter as part of your grant. So typically families pay 30% of their income toward the rent and they can pay up to 40% of their income. And over time, that's initially, over time, it's housing choice voucher. If the rent goes up beyond 30% or beyond 40%, they can elect to stay and pay. But the maximum subsidy that we are going to pay is 30% of the families. The difference between

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Let's see who's Ashley, there's

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: an Ashley, ahead, Ashley. I have several questions. The first being, can you just repeat, we're one of two states that does it that way. What would be the normal? Or what is the most

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: And it's 30% of their income toward the rent, whatever source of income.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Sorry,

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: just got caught me off guard. How many years in

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: a row have we had a shortfall?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: This is the first time in my history of leading the agency that we've been in this position. I've been in my position as executive director for four years. Previously was the director of our Section eight housing programs for close to thirty years. Our agency has never been in a shortfall situation.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And is that because there's usually a gap, like as the general fund or the VA fills that gap, or we've just never had

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: a choice? We've never had conversations with the legislature about assisting the Housing Choice Badger Program. Public housing authorities have worked through those challenges on their own, but typically public housing authorities would have a reserve account, a housing assistance payment reserve account that they could fall back on to support increases in housing assistance payments that they weren't expecting. This past year when Housing and Urban Development funded our budget, they took our reserve account to fund the $35,000,000 that they gave us to run our program. So, we don't have a reserve account. Okay, that's helpful.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I'm gonna ask a really difficult question. You came in here earlier this week and asked for an additional $45,000,000 of one time funds. 45,000,000? Yep.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: No. What? I think you're thinking of somebody else. Apologies, but I think you're right. Okay. I think you're thinking of the North.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Whatever North was saying is that in the past we had used, was it 45,000,000 or 37,000,000, whatever, and if that we multiply it because of the tax credit and tax other tax programs. I think there have been larger numbers floated.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: No, I guess what I'm saying is this is gonna be a very difficult budget year. And it's going to be our responsibility as a legislator to unfortunately pick and choose. And it's how would you like us as an advocate to prioritize where funds are going how, because at the end of the day, we as the committee have to say, yes, we support this, no, we don't support this memo, and then our colleagues and appropriations have a really difficult job, but we have to do it in a way that we prioritize and we're able to highlight what's the most important. So I guess my question is, out of all of the monetary asks that you may or may not come back with later, what is most important? I think I absolutely support this. It's just, I guess, it's more of like, how would you like us to prioritize these funds?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: And thank you for that question. That's a difficult question. Housing stability and preventing housing instability is paramount. It has to be in priority. And I agree Maslow's hierarchy is under attack, and you've got some very difficult decisions to make. These are all basic needs for broader healthcare housing. Housing is a platform to help. Housing is a platform to better education. Housing is a platform to housing stability. So to recap, I think preserving housing assistance and keeping Vermont families stably housed has to be a priority.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Great. Ahead.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Careful. Yeah, Thank you. In

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: your request, you've requested a fund, that we create a fund. This is more for a committee discussion. I have concerns about that because I don't view a fund as a one time fund or the creation of

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: a fund. I'm concerned about that being part of the VA, but I do understand why we would use the VA as a vehicle for this one time appropriation. If we weren't to create a new fund, how would you like us to appropriate this? Well, my recommendation is to create the fund that would be administered by the agency of administration, where public housing authorities who need to access the funding for the established purposes would go to that fund working with the agency of administration, that those local housing authorities would be required to comply with the requirements that they have as a business and any HUD rules and regulation. And that would be a transaction between the agency of administration and that local public housing authority. We're all independent businesses, as we spoke about last week when I was in. And from my lens, a contingency fund would allow the general assembly were to support public housing authorities, make the money available should they need it for the prescribed purposes, puts the onus on the public housing authority to work with the administration to obtain these funds. And if the funds aren't needed,

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: we don't, we're going through

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: a period of uncertainty. We don't have an appropriations bill yet for '26, right? If the funds aren't needed, then the funds would just revert back to the general assembly. It it it from my viewpoint, it seems like the best solution.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But it could be Tiff, could you enlighten us? I'm under the impression that the Appropriations Committee has to define the device. In other words, the idea is an appropriation to the agency of administration, whether it goes in a separate fund or whether it's a straight appropriation, it's up to the committee.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: I believe after talking with JFOs James Duffy that that is something that we just have to work out. Just kind of looking into what the most streamlined, elegant, clear vehicle would be and we don't know, I don't know that yet.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other questions before we let Kathleen go and go on Oh, Saudia.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Sorry about that. Hi. I just have a quick question. One or a couple questions, and I don't know if you can answer. Thank you. I I I appreciate this proposal. I know it's nuanced. I know it's challenging, but I do understand the systemic barriers into structuring and how the funding comes in, and that if we don't use it, you lose it, and they reduce the amount based off of the, you know, incorrect vouchers. I know we lost a lot of vouchers this year. My questions are around the reserve funding and the contingency, what whatever this looks like. I have a large group of constituents who are in situations who they have subsidized housing and their rent is increasing. However, their voucher amount is not. And like some of them work. Most of, a large group of folks are folks with developmental disabilities. And so they work limited amounts. But I just wanted to propose the question of do the reserves, are there reserves or contingency funding to cover those gaps so that we're not seeing an increase and an influx in unhoused folks due to a raise and increase if they have a voucher? Does that make sense?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: It does make sense. Thank you for the question. And this proposal does not propose to offset those gaps as a result of participants needing to pay more because of rents increasing.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I've got to follow on to that. Do you reset I mean, what is the process? Let's say I'm a participant, and let's say the difference between my ability to pay, however it's defined, and the amount of the fair market rent. Let's say it's $500. Okay, and then the next year it's not $500, it's $5.50. Do you increase the value of my voucher and if so, when do you do it?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Sure, so public housing authorities are required to look at what we call our voucher payment standards on an annual basis. The voucher payment standard is the value that a subsidy has, a one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom subsidy has, the maximum rent that we will pay in any particular county. So the voucher payment standards are set based on a county level five bedroom size. The most subsidy that a single person living in the city of Montpelier will receive would be the one bedroom voucher payment standard for a one bedroom unit. If the rent exceeds The

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: actual rent.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: If the actual rent, the gross rent, including utilities, exceeds the value of that subsidy, what we will pay, the family picks up the cost of that. And I wanna bring the nexus back to your question. This is one of the cost saving measures that we've implemented is that we're purposely keeping our voucher payment standards lower to stretch the dollar to serve as many families as we possibly can without having to terminate families from the program.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Saudia, does that, mean, it may be a little unfortunate, but I can't answer your question.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Well, no, yeah, no, thank you. I

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: just want thinking about

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: who would be in a, situation

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: You're Would cutting

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: they then be subject to having to go into default to be able to be eligible for the rental arrears program? Like, is that just is it just like the part of the system and the cycle? Or there's no way for folks to catch up if like, I just I'm just trying to paint a picture of what that would look like. You know? I I understand the systems and the silos, and I apologize, and, you know, and the caps and the limits. And I I get that. I just I'm just trying to think of the the very specific instances of folks who are being faced with rent increases, and then they have limitations and they can't. Will they be at risk of losing their vouchers? Yes. That's what I'm asking. Does that make sense?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: It does make sense. It does make sense. And I just wanna establish that even though we have chosen to keep our voucher payment standards lower and not increase them, they're typically increased on December 1 of every year, we believe that the amount of subsidy that we're paying is still providing families affordable rent. And Liz can speak more specifically to that data point, we can provide it to this committee if interested. But before, when we make changes to voucher payment standards, we look at what families are paying for rent. And the majority of the families receiving assistance are in fact paying 30% of their income for rent. Yes, there are cohorts of families that are paying up to 40 and there are some that are paying maybe even 50% of their income for rent. And this is a challenge. Again, choice, they can opt to, if they can't afford the rent, they can move to a more affordable apartment. However, we have a housing supply issue, so it's not as easy as that.

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Yes. And Elizabeth had

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: a question I

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: have a

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: couple of disability related questions. One is, in the last couple of years, we've talked about the number of unhoused Vermonters who have physical disabilities and require accessible units. And the fact that they get to the end of the line for their vouchers, and then they cannot use them within six months because those units actually don't exist. And we have talked about them then going back to the end of the line for vouchers. Is that no longer the case? Do they now just lose their vouchers altogether?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Well, currently, and for many months now, we have not been issuing vouchers. Right, so do they But in normal circumstances when our waiting lists are open Actually, I'm going to pause. I have a subject matter expert, if I may. Representative Mihaly, can I ask my colleague, Elizabeth Bacon,

[Unknown committee member]: to respond to that? I'm to come up and

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: tell us your name for the record. There's a chair.

[Elizabeth Bacon (Managing Director, Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: It's okay?

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah, it is.

[Elizabeth Bacon (Managing Director, Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: I'm Elizabeth Fakin. I'm the managing director of the Housing Programs Administration Division at the Ohio State Housing Division. So historically, in normal times, if someone receives a voucher and they're not able to find a place within the allotted time period, they would need to reapply and then they would go to the bottom

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: of For

[Elizabeth Bacon (Managing Director, Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: about a year now, our waiting list has been closed and we haven't really been issuing vouchers. In the situation that for some reason someone were issued a voucher today, for example, couldn't use it, they wouldn't be able to reapply

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: because everything was just closed.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Okay, so there's that. I just wanted to establish that. But my real actual question is, what happens if there is a likelihood or a reality that SSDI gets cut? What happens?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: In terms of participants' rent contribution?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yep, how will we as a state help keep people who have had their SSDI cut housed?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Well, what comes to mind is a proposal that we're working on, and not to get off the rails, it's a bridge rental assistance program that we're working on a final proposal to submit. I

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: just want to ask, so I want to clarify, and then you're going to go to you, is right now, the voucher's closed. If I have a voucher and I move, or something, I move out or whatever, I've lost that voucher, right?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: No, you can move with that voucher. Can move You with the are a participant, if you're receiving the benefits of a voucher, you're considered a participant. And so you can continue to move from unit

[Elizabeth Bacon (Managing Director, Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: to with that voucher. The exception, if I may, of a project based voucher. So that's where we have a bit of a bottleneck right now. Generally speaking, if someone is in a project based unit after a year of successful tenancy, they can request to get a tenant based voucher and move. We've had to pause all of that because of our funding constraints. So, folks that are in project based units are forced to stay there if they want to keep a subsidy, and so we have funds available.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Gayle? Sorry, didn't hang up the floor.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Oh, you did? I'm sorry. Alright. Sorry, because this

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: is directly to this. Is the contingency fund gonna be used for individual individuals holding vouchers or project based vouchers? And the reason I ask that is that I thought some of your testimony initially was stating that at risk is also the development of more housing, which also goes to the funneling and the shrinking, right? Because if there's not enough affordable housing available, then a person with an individual voucher who cannot find a spot, right? It's just everything is tighter and tighter and tighter. So I'm just asking whether you, A, are going to be looking at both of that so that we're not just the individual vouchers, but the project based vouchers so that we guarantee that projects that have been in the pipeline or have just sprouted up would suddenly look at stoppages. Or if you have, how would you prioritize?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Right, this proposal is not an expansion of the program. This proposal is to prevent the termination and continued downward erosion of the Housing Choice Voucher Program for developments that are currently under construction, where public housing authorities have made an informal commitment to provide project based vouchers. Once that community is ready for occupancy, those commitments have been put on pause because funding is not available to support those commitments at this point in time. We've not ended the commitment. We've just told the developer, we're not gonna be able to commit to you project based vouchers until such time as we have money in our budget, and I can certify that I'm able to support those units. So that is my question. This would enable you to come back to put those commitments back online? It could. I think the devil's in the details.

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: It could. It could. Can I ask what the what the dollar amount would be or percentage of your portfolio kind of on hold until it's built? Sure. For the

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: project based voucher commitments, what comes to mind is approximately 21 units that are on pause, assuming thousand dollars per unit for the month. Who can do a quick math on that?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Quarter of 1,000,000 a year.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: That would be the percentage of funds that would be needed to those commitments.

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: And so you know that dollar amount commitment per unit, are these newer units not going to be more expensive, given that they're a brand new sparkling unit? So you have to commit more dollars to meet? They're going be

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: asked to accept the rent standards that the program will be paying. Okay,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: thank you. Gayle?

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: So if the

[Unknown committee member]: rent where somebody is residing increases, would they be eligible for that, maybe it's called rent arrears program, those two separate things, what the HUD voucher would be, and if they were to fall behind, that's between the landlord and the rent, I think it's community action. So it would be totally separate to get them to catch up. I think it's three months or what's three

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: months? There are separate programs, the Rental Arrears Assistance Fund is actually, this committee is gonna be asked to reappropriate funds to that program this year, and that family who's receiving Section eight assistance who falls behind in their rent could go to the Rental Arrears Assistance Fund to receive benefit to prevent eviction.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Ashley, can I piggyback off of that? Because I've been trying to figure out this answer. Say this happens, and for some reason the rental arrears doesn't happen, or this person is now evicted or something's not working, do they lose their voucher? And if they lose their voucher, do they lose it forever? Do they fall to the limit? If something happens, is there a way for them to, like your credit report, build it back up? You don't lose it for, I don't wanna say bad behavior, but

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Would you like to respond to that? Sure.

[Elizabeth Bacon (Managing Director, Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: So if someone has a voucher and they're evicted for non payment of rent, we would terminate their assistance. Forever. For that moment. So folks have an opportunity to request an informal hearing. And so they could come in and say, I was in a horrible accident, so I couldn't pay my rent. We'll take into account their circumstances, if there's disability related challenges, if there's domestic violence. Look at the whole picture and determine should this person get their voucher back. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. But if they don't, they would be eligible to get back on the waiting list if it were open. We would take that last tenancy into account if they came to the top of the list. We want to understand what happened, but

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: it doesn't bar them forever from participating. But

[Unknown committee member]: they go to the bottom of the list.

[Elizabeth Bacon (Managing Director, Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: If our lists were open, yes.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Of

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: course, next question is, how long and how hard is

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: it to get back to being offered a voucher? How long does

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: it take? How large is your family? How great your need? How likely that you live in a community where there is housing available? What's the logic of prioritizing and where you saw it on the list?

[Elizabeth Bacon (Managing Director, Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: So housing authorities are allowed to create local preferences for their waiting list, so that varies by housing authority. Vermont State Housing Authority has a priority for Vermont residents. We have a priority for folks who are non elderly disabled. So there's sort of a ranking point system that you get. And our highest priority recently has been folks that are needing a move up preference. So they're in a time limited rental assistance program like VRS. So this bumps those folks to the top of the list of they can move from that program and allow other families to access VRS. So that most recently was our priority group. Since our beginning list is closed and we don't have funds to issue new vouchers, there's about 300 to 500 families just sitting, and we don't really know how long it will take before we'll have funds to be able to issue new vouchers.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Just a very, very quick question. Is the list frozen or is it wiped out? It's just closed, it's frozen.

[Elizabeth Bacon (Managing Director, Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: You can't add to it, but we're not taking anybody off. Alright,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: with the committee, if we proceed to our next three witnesses. Yes. Well, our next witness, Joe Priyama, please come. Hi, welcome. Just tell us your name for the record.

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: My name is Joanne Trojano and I am the director of the Montpelier Housing Authority, which is the smallest and the last of the local public housing authorities, there are eight in the state. We have also the smallest Section eight voucher program. We have 125 vouchers. In addition, we operate a public housing program. We manage Section eight new construction, sub rehab. We manage a couple of rural development properties and a couple of Washington County mental health properties for a total portfolio of three fifteen units. We have operated the Section VIII voucher program since 1976 and up until this year we have never had a problem with the program. We have been, our usage has been between 9597% of our vouchers, with maybe one exception, we were 92%. Our waiting list, we were telling people up before June 1 that you'd be on the list no more than a year before you would get a voucher based on our attrition. And then, I started decreasing the amount of money we got, like everybody else, all this, we would need, but I'm sure it's been described to you shortfall, that they weren't going

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: to give us the They funds we

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: would give us some additional shortfall funding if we agreed not to reissue vouchers when they expired, when someone left the program. And we couldn't leave anybody to a higher cost unit. And I said, well, we have reserves. We have $180,000 in reserves. So can't we just take my bike? And she told me that if I didn't accept the shortfall program, we would be $100,000 in the hole by December. So of course, and my attrition is not even a unit a month usually. From June, from the minute that I got off the call with them until December 1, we lost 11 vouchers. Five to deaths, Hannah's going to nursing home. One happily, a woman and her boyfriend built the house and she exited the program. So I am down now to 107 vouchers in use. So that means I have 18 households who could be helped that I can't help. I personally our housing authority right now is not in danger of terminating anyone. So I'm probably not going to be one of the eight or nine that has to come if you approve a million dollars. The way that the program is going is just downward. I mean, it's just not fair. And especially since we were telling people six, seven months ago that if you applied a year ago, wouldn't, if you applied you have no more than a year's wait. And I was ready, had the next five people on our waiting list ready to issue vouchers when they told us they had to stop.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You've got a question here. Yes, I'm sorry.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Please explain this to me like I am five. About fifteen. Yeah, five. Okay. So you were telling me, I just like, I want to reiterate it for my own brain. Okay.

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: That HUD has told you

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: that once somebody is no longer using that voucher, I

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: have to shell, I'm calling it shell, but they are taking them away from me. They're saying until there's a difference in, I don't know, I don't know if anybody's been told that they can do anything. So you can't touch that? No, they're sitting there. Sitting there on a little shelf in my office. That's the way I look at it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's not logical.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Can I just interject for And a so once Housing and Urban Development has deemed that the Housing Authority is in a short fall situation, meaning they don't have enough funds to support program costs, you are not allowed to issue vouchers? There's many things that you're not allowed to do until Housing and Urban Development re evaluates your public housing authority and says, you're no longer in shortfall. You can now commence your normal business practices, issuing vouchers, etcetera. I was on a call yesterday with a high ranking HUD official, and Liz and I both were, and he conveyed that until there's a full year appropriations bill and we know for certain what our funding is going to be, if you were in a shortfall situation in 2025, then you are presumed to be in a shortfall situation in 2026 and that status will stay until full year funding is known. Right.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So I'm not great. I'm mad. I'm trying to not freak out about this. If I, and I'm not a math person, so please, I'm going to use very similar,

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: like literally, please like

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I am 5. Say I receive a voucher for $5 and I die. And you have to shelve it. But there is somebody else who needs a voucher. And they also need it for just $5 You would have continued my voucher had I not died. Right. Absolutely. But the voucher is shelved because I died.

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: And even though you're only five, I'm also five in this situation, not understanding. We all got a letter, I think it was December 22, saying HUD is, I don't if they use the word encouraging or advising housing authorities to stop issuing vouchers in 2026 until we know. I mean, the things that could happen two weeks is the January 31. What's gonna happen the January 31? Government might shut down again. And then you don't have anyone to talk to to even mean, I'm getting up my nerve or anger level to call the shortfall person because based on my history, I should have at least 116 vouchers under use if I hadn't had the large, it's the confluence of horrible things, a cut in funding and a much higher than normal level of attrition. And I would at least be able to issue enough vouchers to get back to where I was when they told us we couldn't issue any more vouchers.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And it's just like this automatic cutoff regardless of whether or not you have a reserve or not. Right.

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: In my case, as she said, the reserve wouldn't last all that long and yeah, you know, I don't, I'm tempted to issue a fume since they know this, but.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: What happens if that happens? Like, I'm serious, like, what would happen? Well, I

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: suppose I could terminate the program.

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: What would happen is that, should Housing and Urban Development have shortfall plans available as part of their 2026 appropriation. And Mrs. Triano did not follow the direction of HUD and she was in shortfall, she wouldn't be able to lean on housing development or shortfall prevention funds. And I just wanna just also convey the same conversation that we had with Ms. Todd Fischel. He did encourage public housing authorities to get creative. There are a lot of tools that are available to them and that they need to get creative in figuring out what's going I think this is one of those strategies.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Was that a person with whom you had worked in the past, or was that a new person?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: This is an individual who leads a short fall prevention team. So this is an individual that he has been, he works with housing authorities across the country that are in a similar situation, although wouldn't tell us the number, but assured us that there was at least one in every state that was going through similar.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: And you hadn't been in shortfall before, so you hadn't worked with this person. But do you know how long they have been on the job?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: How long have they been working for Housing and Urban Development? This individual has been working for High Peak, shared for four or five years. Prior to that, he was an executive director for more than twenty years. And in our conversation, he shared some of the challenges that his public housing authority went through during the time he was an executive director and how the unit of local government was able to step in, help out by providing some administrative support so that public housing authority could use all of their resources, which are eligible to support housing assistance payments. And when that housing authority does that, those funds that they use that are eligible, it added to the base for next year's funeral.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We've got we have two witnesses. One I wanna know, Kevin, let me just ask you because I'd like I mean, we may have some simultaneous testimony here. Kevin, what's your timeframe? Are you able to stay with us for a while or you are? I am. And Chris, what's your timeframe? It's good. Are there other questions for Joanne at this point? Joanne, can you afford to stay with us?

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: I'll stay with you. Yes.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: It's more of a general question for everybody, because obviously my original question, like, we're very concerned about cash flow. But if you do come up with something creative, please reach out to us if there's anything that we can do on our end to voice through that and support you. I'm not a creative person. I can be a loud person, so please let us know. And your testimonies, if you're like, hey, this is a wild idea, I'd like to hear it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Great, thank you, Joanne. I'll tell you what, Kevin, you're next. I think I'm really appreciative of all the questions. I think it's our chance, it's been our chance to begin to learn a little bit how this complex program works. And there may be, if the committee desires, we can arrange for even further testimony than we have today to get into it more. Of course, what we're focusing on today is whether or not we can support simply a letter to, appropriations. Kevin, you wanna identify yourself for the record and testify?

[Kevin Loso (Executive Director & CEO, Rutland Housing Authority)]: Thank you, mister chairman. My name is Kevin Loeso. I'm the, executive director and CEO of Rutland Housing Authority and Housing Initiatives Inc. We are a Rutland based organization, and we have a very diverse, portfolio, all of which is impacted on by the issues around section eight currently. We have a 154 units that were previously under the old public housing program. We have converted those, under a program through the rental assistance demonstration project to project based section eight. We have two ninety six, what I will call more traditional housing choice vouchers. We have currently 37 commitments in the area of the project based voucher program, and we have a 78 unit development under what you might know as the LITEC program for lack of a of a better term. We have eight units of transitional housing for the homeless. And we also have a very robust resident services program under the Support and Services at Home initiative or SASH. Focusing on those 296 vouchers, which would be impacted on through this discussion, of those 296 for which we are authorized by HUD, 57 of them are, as, miss Toriano said, shelved. In other words, 57 of those vouchers, we do not have funding, HUD funding, to either issue or reissue. Historically, that number was around 20, and we were very proud of that. But within the last twelve to eighteen months, we've had an additional 34 vouchers which have been returned, and we have been unable to reissue. So, again, the gap between what we're authorized at $2.96 and what we get funded for has resulted in 57 vouchers essentially being taken off the, off the street. Now our, as Ms. Burke indicated earlier, we all have a per unit cost, if you will, for those vouchers depending on local market fact local market factors and what HUD calls the fair market rents for various regions around the not just the state, but the, but the country. So our, per unit cost is somewhere around, it fluctuates somewhere around, $6.80 to $700 per participant per month. K. And I worked out a little scenario. Let's say that Rutland were to receive a a million dollars in, in state funding or access to a million dollars in state funding. Unlikely, but I'm using it for, purposes of an example. We would be able to not only reissue the 57 vouchers that are shelved, but an, an additional 68, for a total of a 125. Wishful thinking, I, I realize. But, we have a we have a three year wait list for our Section eight program. We have closed the wait list because we feel as though accepting new applications is unfair, provides a sense of hope that just doesn't exist. But even with that, our backlog is is three years of people who are currently on the on the wait list. We too are in a a shortfall position. As as Ms. Burke reported with Vermont State Housing Authority, we are working diligently, to get out of that, position. But again, the end result has been whenever a voucher is returned, we simply can't reissue it, thereby bringing our total cost down and hopefully getting us out of the red, if you will. I think, Kathleen and Joanne have pretty well covered, the impact, and the benefits of this alloca of this appropriation. It would increase funding for 2027, which would, it would provide funds, in 2026 for us to lease up more vouchers, thereby increasing our renewal funding and the number of families that we can serve in, twenty twenty seven. I know that Mr. Connolly will, will address this in his comments, but the Section eight program has ripple effects as it relates to the rest of the affordable housing world. Most notably, those affordable housing developments that were, and are dependent on, project based rental assistance are, in my mind, going to be stymied without the both the project based assistance that's provided, as well as a housing choice vouchers that are utilized in those properties. We, as I mentioned, have, 37 of those what were housing choice vouchers, contracted with local nonprofits, and we have an additional eight that are pending. And frankly, those eight for a very, very great project in Rutland are on hold and frankly in jeopardy. And that's gonna have a very real impact on the extent to which those developments can cash flow and sustain themselves in the way of revenue. Another area that, impacts us directly is, the extent to which Section eight supports our efforts in our, what we call Rutland area bridge housing, which is designed to provide, housing for people exiting homelessness. The concept is we bring a homeless family in, we help stabilize the family, and then we find them permanently affordable housing. Most of those successes in the past have been as a result of the Housing Choice Voucher Program. In other words, they move from transitional housing into a into an apartment out in the community because they have that housing choice voucher subsidy to take with them. We're not seeing that in this property anymore because we can't issue new vouchers to support that transition. Additionally, we're you know, the property itself is struggling because there's no medium term rental assistance available. So the very future of that of that very strong and effective program is at risk. It's that ripple effect, that I talked about, earlier.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Kevin Loso (Executive Director & CEO, Rutland Housing Authority)]: You know, I recognize, the the current situation in Mount Peelier is very, very, very difficult. And that, the legislature is under enormous pressure with with conflicting not conflicting, but a lot of a lot of priorities to try to address. I'll go back to something that, that Kathleen said earlier, the concept of Maslow's need hierarchy. You can't get too far up that pyramid without a roof over your head. And the reality is that with that roof over your head, you're able to pursue other options that ultimately lead to family self sufficiency. And that's what we're trying to do. That's what the system is designed to do. But without that housing foundation, it really undermines the whole the whole system. I will tell you that I've been in housing, not quite as long as, Kathleen, twenty six years here at the Rutland Housing Authority. Prior to that, it was health care, specifically resident service coordination in affordable housing developments. It's never been this bad. We are on the precipice of of losing housing for vulnerable Vermonters who need it the most. And, again, I go back to the my comment about I know you're under enormous pressure, but the long term cost benefit of this appropriation is is going to have real impact on the families that we, we serve and the ones that you represent. So I'm gonna leave it at that. I'm happy to answer any questions, but I know our our time is running short. So, again, thank you so much. I apologize for not being able to to get up there in person, but, some of you may know I had a little mishap in my high rise, fire a that resulted in some, water damage to to seventeen, eighteen, 20 units, and we are, working, very hard to to recover from that. So, again, thank you for your time. Thank you for your consideration, and I'm available at any time to return to the committee and and provide additional testimony.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you, Kevin. What I think I'd like to do, if it's okay with the committee, is I'd like to have Chris Donnelly testify. And, Kevin, if you would stay here, we could ask questions in either one of them before we get to the question of whether we could support this letter.

[Kevin Loso (Executive Director & CEO, Rutland Housing Authority)]: And I apologize for the background noise. It's, the Vermont Food Bank dropping off food for our tenants.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We can't hear it. Okay.

[Kevin Loso (Executive Director & CEO, Rutland Housing Authority)]: I'm gonna go back on, mute.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Chris?

[Chris Donnelly (Director of Community Relations, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Hey. Good morning. Chris Donnelly with the Champlain Housing Trust. I'm sorry I can't be there in person, today. We'll be down tomorrow if people wanna chat, but I know you have a kind of a time sensitive decision to to make today. I won't go through I I submitted, a memo that I had provided to the Appropriations Committee Chair, so I won't go through that point by point, but, just briefly, I just wanted to, echo the support for this proposal. Because of the impact on our ability to deliver for what the state has asked us to do, More than half of CHT's renters rely on some kind of federal subsidy. That's about thirteen fifty residents or households. They may be working. They may be disabled. They may be newly exiting homelessness, and, without, this kind of stabilization of the public housing authorities that is envisioned with this contingency fund, we'll see a few different impacts in our shop, and I I it will be probably more significant here just because of our scale, but it's also it will be similar to other community housing nonprofit groups around the state. If you recall last week when my director Michael Monty was in, this was one of the points of priority for all the housing nonprofits in this state. This was fifth on his on his list, but not not last. The impacts are are threefold. Kevin just mentioned how without project based commitments and this was spoken to earlier, It is hard to move forward with development and move people out of homelessness. We have requirements when we receive funding to have a certain number of apartments set aside for people exiting homelessness and without the commitment. In place for the project based vouchers, it's really hard to move forward. So it may it may stymie some of our real estate development. A second issue is that we operate programs such as, say, the VHIP program, we also operate motels and shelters. It is almost impossible to move anybody out of homelessness without a voucher, and last year this committee supported changes to the VHIP program that would set a target at 30% of the units that were created through VHIP should serve people exiting homelessness, so we will not be able to reach that target, that request that this committee and the legislature made with that program. The shelters and motels will just be a bottleneck. We will continue to spend money on motels, and we'll continue to have to keep people in shelters without this kind of this is, you know, the the fact that these subsidies are being shelved means that we're taking away a lifeline to permanent housing for people, and that makes us unable to fulfil our mission and the requirements that the state put on its programs. And then lastly, with the number of people that are receiving federal support in our portfolio, any loss of income means that we will start to see stress in our property budgets. Stress in our property budgets due to lost rent means that we'll have stress in our operating budget, and that just will cause this ripple effect to make it more difficult for us to be able to carry out other programs. Any destabilisation of the housing authorities will have an effect on your community housing groups that are really working hard to serve the most vulnerable people and keep them off the streets and keep them out of hotels. You've heard that investment now will increase federal funding in the future. I think that's a beneficial use of these funds, but it also prevents increased spending on shelters and motels from state fiscal funds. And so it has a double benefit, not just in terms of stabilising people's lives, but also, I think, on the state's budget and the capacity of nonprofits like ours to carry out our programs. So I encourage you to support this program. I really appreciate you taking so much time to dive into it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Questions of either of these two before we bring it back to us to discuss this letter?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I don't have a question, but I'd like to get an acute verifier.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, okay, we'll certainly have discussion. Any questions for these two? I think it would be good if I don't want to impose on you guys, but I think it would be good if you could stay with us while we discuss the letter in case questions arise. I just want to say the letter that's in front of you that was distributed, I drafted, and then it was edited by Ashley, edited by Kathleen, and it's very simple in that I'm sure the people on the Appropriations Committee have plenty to read without a lot from me, but or from us, but what it does is the first paragraph sets out essentially what it is that we're asking. The second paragraph summarizes the test just who testified. And the third paragraph tries to explain the nexus between spending money now and that will spending money now will increase the ability to issue vouchers this year, and in turn since we'll have more active vouchers, funding for the future years. So I guess I would just like to put on the floor, if anyone's willing to make a motion, that we send this letter to the appropriation, and then we'll discuss it. So moved. Do we have a second?

[Elizabeth Bacon (Managing Director, Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: We have

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a motion on the Can

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: we post

[Rep. Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: the letter online?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's online.

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: I just saw that these handouts were left on my desk, and I don't know whether you

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: meant to distribute these to the folks who get paper copies. That's

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: directly related. It's the memorandum. Yeah, so if anybody who normally gets paper copies would like a paper copy of

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you need me to

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: go for a little bit different.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I have to be somewhere at twelve.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Well, let me do that. I

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: think

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I have the authority.

[Rep. Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Mean, we're

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: going to take a vote. You were the clerk last session. You're still the clerk.

[Rep. Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: It's over to seven hundred fifty eight.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I ask which question?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We should have discussions. We have a problem that one person has to speak.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: So we need to have an official vote?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, we don't have to have an official vote, we can have a sense of a committee, I can have a straw poll. We can do that. Can

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I register my straw poll? Yes, can do that.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Alright, but let's have a discussion. So

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: if you have to leave, we don't get to discuss, or you can make a statement and then leave

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: and give your straw poll Yes, I'd like not to do that as much as possible, so everybody else, stick around. You're registering Elizabeth A in a vote in the affirmative? Yes. Okay, thank you. So, thoughts? Yes. Sure. Well,

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I won't be long because,

[Rep. Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: we're already going up to the hour, but, and we heard the testimony from the folks who we really need to hear from. But as far as how I feel, I knew coming into this session, I haven't had one constituent say, I bet it's going We knew we were going to have a tough session, and

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: this was one

[Rep. Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: of the topics that I knew coming into this session would be front and center for our committee's work, and we're here very quickly with it. And, as we heard from the testimony, I can't think of a place where money should be invested immediately more than here because the cost of not making this investment is terrifying to me. And so as a policymaker and a person with a voice in this committee, I put my support behind the memo, and I thank every single person who is out there doing the work to help these folks. And so I will be supporting the memo and do everything I can to make sure that we don't continue to see a spiral.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. Thank you, representative. Can I

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: ask a quick question? I'm so sorry, I had to step out briefly. We're talking about this specific memo, where it doesn't specifically create a fund. That's correct. So hypothetically, our recommendation would be for appropriations, who is talking to James Duffy about what is the best way to streamline it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Correct. Okay. Just don't think we know exactly yet what the best way for

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: them I to do it just want to voice that I would be uncomfortable with our committee creating a new fund in the BAA at this time, understanding that appropriations doesn't have that information quite yet. And so I'm fine with moving forward with this language and saying appropriations will do the good work. I just wanna make sure I

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: have Other comments, please. Joe?

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah. So as I read it, this is our intent with this, correct me if I'm wrong, would be just to fulfill housing vouchers that there isn't currently money for.

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: For the team.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So it would be to slow the We have the vouchers. Yeah. We have the voucher, but we don't have the money.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Correct. They're just backfilling money. They're saying We don't have the voucher?

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Yes. We have authority to issue vouchers. Yes, and we have vouchers that are in use, but this is not a proposal to backfill. That's what I was responding.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I don't know if backfill is the correct way.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: This would be to put money behind the vouchers that you're able to

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: the erosion, stabilize those.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Are you trying to save the same number

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: of Retaining.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: The vouchers that you're using or the vouchers that you're able to

[Unknown committee member]: from a Section eight

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: decision. Okay, so you're

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: not, this isn't a This is, it

[Joanne Trojano (Executive Director, Montpelier Housing Authority)]: gets back up to 100, this is going down further and at this point, we had no choice but to terminate people who were receiving assistance because we can't help them.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Okay. So, part of our conversation was just around was around the possibility of projects on hold, which this wouldn't fund, in my opinion.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think they have the power to allocate some of the vouchers, some of the money to project based vouchers, and they would. Just don't know how I don't think that we are decide we're not deciding as between what do they call choice vouchers and project based vouchers. I don't think we're deciding that. They could do either.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: What was that your intent would be to fulfill project based vouchers that occur in that whole? It's just not written that way, is my point.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: It may be helpful

[Kathleen Burke (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: to also understand that it's one singular program, it's the housing choice voucher program. Project based vouchers are something that's all intent.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other comments? Yes.

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: I think that this is one of those, like we can look at this as a statewide solution that will allow the people that know best. We're not overstepping, we're not creating hurdles, we're ensuring that the people who know exactly where the risks are will be able to retain people in really vulnerable situations who are already facing increased dramatic costs in their other survival, health and food and etcetera, transportation, given all of that, if we can help lay some, a little bit of cement into that foundational value of being permanently housed or having stable housing, that this is a huge, hugely important crucial element of that cement ingredient. Thank you. I will be voting yes.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I only want to have one comment here, which is what attracted me about this particular proposal is the following. I do think, and Joe kind of alluded to this, we're going to have a continuing problem here, which is only likely to get orders of magnitude worse.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I don't know what we're going to do. In other words, are we going to mount up an entire state program to substitute the loss of the federal program? And if so, how in Lord's name are we going to pay for it? These are important issues that we're going to have to face next year, if not before, but certainly in the near future if the current trend continues. What attracted me about this particular proposal is that its future effect, that it has a continuing effect, one time future effect of putting us in a better position, whatever paltry funding we get from the Feds to maximize that. So that's what particularly appeals to me. It does not relieve us, it will not serve to relieve us from the pain of future decisions. So I guess at this point I would ask, for a show of hands, please real quick. Yes.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Saudia, I see that you just turned your camera on, do you want to say something?

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Thank you. Yes. Which is it's not really much other than my 2¢ just to echo that the importance of this. And it it it really is to mitigate to do anything that we can in our power to mitigate future loss of funding or vouchers and to try to stabilize the situation and in the best capacity we can. Given our current housing situation, I support the statement and hopefully, you know, we can appropriate the funds. So I just wanted to just say that this is of the utmost importance and I think that this is on the right track and it is not up to us to decide. We're leaving it to the experts. So I think Right.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Yes, Mary.

[Rep. Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Oh, I thought the experts were meeting all.

[Unknown committee member]: They are. I just wanna concur with everything that representative Dodge said. Housing is a crisis and has been a crisis for a very long time. And to have people who are in crisis looking for housing is just heart wrenching to see kids without a home. It shouldn't be that way in the richest country in the world. We shouldn't have that. So I totally support this and anything else that I could do. And I definitely am so impressed with everyone who has spoken today. And I, as representative Lamoille said, leave it up to the experts because you know what's going on. So thank you so much for testifying. I appreciate it. So could I have a show of hands for people who feel we should send this letter?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Elizabeth

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: With one caveat. Yes. What's that? Putting money $3.04, $5.06. This is 5,000,000.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No. 9. 10. Okay.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yes. I'm hopeful that this does what we're hoping. This doesn't what? That it does what we're hoping. God. Or we see years and years and years of benefit. I'm skeptical of that, that it's gonna be, like, two to three years by the time the numbers just ratchet themselves back down. And I see that 5,000,000, and I look at the I don't know what we're up to, 78,000,000 out of the general fund that comes out for education because of structural problems. I hope you don't just keep throwing money at structural problems. We

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think I would I I share a lot of Joe's concerns personally, and I think the way what we need to do is have a report back on what's happening. And I will be in touch with Kathleen, who in turn will be in touch with the rest of you on how we make that happen. And we'll find out what, Tiff, would you convey that the letter sometime later today will go from us to the committee? Thank you. And at this point, I really want to thank our witnesses.

[Rep. Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Yeah, thank you so much.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Ms. Troiano, Kevin, Lonzo, Chris, Donnelly, a thousand thank yous, and we are adjourned for the morning, and we do not we have after lunch, we have what is there anything besides the meeting? There's meeting discussions at 01:00. Okay. Thank you very much.

[Kevin Loso (Executive Director & CEO, Rutland Housing Authority)]: Thank you.