Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Morning, everyone. You are in the House Committee on General and Housing, and it is Friday. Happy Friday, everyone, January. We have with us today the August Chair of the Human Services Committee, Theresa Wood, for two purposes. One is to introduce five sixty five, which is her bill, just a quick introduction. Yeah. Forgot

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: about that.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And I think that's where we should start.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Okay.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And then also because a larger there's a larger reason, which is I have felt that I came to realize in a way that we depended entirely on the Human Services Committee to address all the homeless and sort of, in a lot of ways, a lot of the housing subsidy issues, and that's fine, but I didn't think it was good that we didn't understand them or didn't know about them. So, I asked Theresa to come in and literally talk to us about the regime overall. Today, it turns out she has less time than we thought, so with your permission, we'll start today, but then reschedule you for a little more Absolutely,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: if you feel like that's necessary, Chair, if your committee wants to have me back, I'm more than willing to come back at any time.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Great, well, don't you introduce yourself and let's introduce 565.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Okay, great. Good morning, everyone. My name is Theresa Wood. I represent Bolton, Beals Gore, Huntington and Waterbury. I live in Waterbury and I am the chair of the House Human Services Committee. Thank you for having me. The bill which the chair just spoke of came about as a result of meeting with the constituent, which often some of our best work does. And she expressed, she is a landlord in Burlington. So she has familiarity with sort of landlord tenant issues. So her daughter in her 20s purchased her first home, a mobile home that was already sitting in a park in Waterbury. And the young woman has an excellent credit history. She works two jobs. She's really responsible. She started the interaction with the park owner about paying a rent and he said, well, you'll be required to pay twelve months in advance. And they said, well, that can't be. There must be some rule against that, or there must be some reasonableness of this made no sense. And in her research, learned that no, unless you have a, like the city of Burlington or city of Winooski or Bradborough, unless there's a local housing authority that has some sort of ordinance about it, smaller towns across the state really don't. And she wondered if there was any legislative opportunity to have a discussion about what they were considering, and I agreed, to be an unfair practice. Particularly in light of the fact that she felt like she was being singled out because of her age. There wasn't any sort of uniformity to this product owner's He didn't say twelve months to everybody. And he hadn't checked her credit history, which he would have found was an excellent credit history. And so, I said I would bring forth this bill. So that's what you have. It's fairly simple. And I understand that there's another housing bill that has some sort of similar language in it. And I appreciate the committee's attention to talking about the issue. Don't care what bill or anything it ends up in. And I've talked to some landlords in the building and they actually, they were supportive of the concept of there needs to be some sort of statewide guardrail or, yeah, guardrail is not the right word, but statewide standard, that's the word I'm looking for, some statewide standard for that. The people who talked to me said that they did have some questions, not necessarily concerns, but questions about how the interest bearing account portions of the bill would actually play out. How would a relatively, somebody who owns like maybe one park that's got a 100 different individuals in there, it doesn't turn over all the time, but how would that play out? So, said, the committee I'm sure will take up, if they take up the bill, they will start to dig into some of those questions. So, pretty straightforward and that's it. I can take any questions if anybody has any questions.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Please go ahead. Yes, thank you

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: for

[Unidentified Member]: this. I'm reading on the bottom of page three into four that you've carved out an exception for those landowners that may have already retained. Can you tell us a little

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: bit about the That was alleged counsel's way of there was some thought about making it retroactive. It was, I'm gonna defer to Legge Council. That was the language that they came up with that I think they would probably be better able to explain, to be honest with you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I have a suspicion that they just don't want to be forcing everybody to discourage money that they'd already collected. You know, I think How much do you disgorge and all of

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: that? Right.

[Unidentified Member]: Okay, oh, I see the very next Sorry, I had not read The very next measure of language says that they would have a set amount of time after which they would have to deposit any excess of three months into an account. Okay, thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, now let's move on.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: I have a question.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, Debbie.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: I don't know how to raise my hand on the screen. So I just interrupt.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Someone will alert me if I don't see you.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: Well, I mean, I do own property in a mobile home park and we do

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: sorry. We oh, darn it. This is gonna happen. You

[Unidentified Member]: wanna turn off your camera and just have the sound?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You're breaking up. So so Yeah.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: I don't know how to get back there. You're back. Anyhow, and we do pay a full month, I mean a full year, But everybody in the park does. Our rent is we pay the full year.

[Unidentified Member]: At the beginning of the year, everyone is asked to pay

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a full But this is different, This one involved the particular case that Teresa was referring to is that in addition to whatever rent they had to pay, they had to put down a security deposit in the amount of twelve months' rent. So that would be like two years upfront.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: Gotcha. And I was wondering on the interest bearing account, that's put in the name of the leaseholder? Yes, sir. Is that how that's done?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I don't know the mechanics of it representative, but I do know that there are other provisions in statute where deposits and such need to be deposited into an interest bearing account. So I don't know the mechanics of how it works, but I'm sure that if the committee decides to take that up, we can get testimony about that.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: Okay, Thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You're welcome. So shall we begin? Do you have a little time to begin and tell us basically, I think it's up to you. I think you should assume that whatever you know needs to be explained.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: That might be a tall order.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The only thing, I mean, don't assume a lot of

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: people Don't assume.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. The only thing you should assume is that we had a long, we had two hours almost appearing on Section eight yesterday, resulting in a letter of support for the $5,000,000 proposal. So, I think we know a good bit about Section eight, but beyond that, no. Like, what's going on with your age 91, and now you have a new bill, and whatever you wanna I'm

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: gonna start off, I think, with the complexity of the agency of human services sort of at that basic level. I think that folks probably have a pretty good idea that it's the largest agency in state government. It has thousands upon thousands of employees located all over the state. They include not only people hosted in central offices, in Waterbury, there's a large complex in Waterbury, but in district offices all across the state in your communities. And it is literally for all Vermonters, everything from prenatal services to burial services. So from before death to after death, that is covered in the agency of human services. So you can imagine in our committee, deal with a wide breadth of issues. And in the House Human Services Committee, we have responsibility for the Department for Children and Families, for the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living, and for the Department of Health. The agency of human services also includes the Department of Mental Health, which is under healthcare, the healthcare committee. It includes the Department of Vermont Health Access, which is essentially kind of the state's insurer for the Medicaid program. And that is also under the healthcare committee. It has an office of rate setting. So the division of rate setting falls under the Department for Vermont Health Access. Things like rate setting is important because that crosses over all of the agency at human services.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But the Department of Health, Yes. You guys do.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: We do.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Not the healthcare committee.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And the reason because of that is it is about the broad expanse of public health. And of course there is the division of substance use services. And there's discussion now about whether that should be combined with the Department of Mental Health, given the co occurring nature of some of those issues. And so, we had a hearing about that yesterday. And then there's the Department of Corrections, which people might not understand or realize, like, what's the connection with the Department of Corrections? Lots of other states have that in their sort of public safety realm. Vermont's made a choice because oftentimes people who end up in the correctional system, they're not gonna stay there forever, most of them. They're gonna need to receive supports and services to transition back out into the community. And oftentimes the reasons they end up in the correctional system are because of the lack of the kind of supports and services that could have maybe prevented that in the beginning. And again, those all being contained within the agency of human services. So we do everything from childcare, from licensing and protection, from funding nursing facilities and residential care homes to home and community based services, things that And a lot of Medicaid upstairs, a lot of Medicaid, and a lot of other federal funds as well. We are responsible for child welfare. So when children and youth are placed into the custody of the state, that happens within our committee and in the Department for Children and Families. I mentioned childcare. We're probably all familiar with Office of Economic Opportunity and the General Assistance Program, fall within the Department for Children and Families as well. And so there is a myriad of supports and services that actually contribute to the stability of people in their housing situations. And particularly low income individuals or individuals with disabilities or older Vermonters. So that is something where our two committees have quite a bit of intersection, because you're wanting to assure that our state has adequate housing stock, and we need to assure that the supportive services for people are there so that they can be safely and appropriately supported if they need that kind of support to maintain their housing.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What is the budget of the parts that, you know, DCF, Dale, DHS, etcetera, that you are kind of in charge of about how much?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I'll tell you after the governor's budget presentation on Tuesday.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's in Okay, the billions, Yes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: We get involved when you think about housing. Yesterday, it hit the news that there's a nursing home closing in Colchester. That is something that obviously is concerning to us. In that particular home, there's 51 individuals who would need to be transitioned to someplace else. It's not always easy to find nursing facility services for people. So, we have all different kinds of housing, I guess, is the thing that when we talk about housing in human services, we're talking about one on one kinds of things. It could be a staff department for somebody who has particularly challenging support needs around their behaviors or their medical issues. So it could be with another family. So payments are made to a family to support an individual. It could be in what we call staff departments where there's actually sort of shift staffing, but no more than two people live there. And then we moved into the license capacity. So at the Division of Licensing and Protection, anything over three individuals who are unrelated needs to be licensed. Three and above? Three and above, yes. So, there's all different kinds of housing that we deal with. Everything from, I guess, I would call the most intensive medically oriented, which is the skilled nursing to the least intensive, which would be somebody who needs occasional support, check ins by case management in their own apartment. And then rental assistance, which you hear about here, HUD intersects with you folks and it intersects with us upstairs. Trying to maximize federal resources is one of the things that we do in order to provide as much supportive housing as we can. So I was in appropriations last evening and somebody made a comment that, well, all the money we're investing in housing, we're taking care of the homeless. And I'm like, well, actually we're not investing money in housing for people of very low income. People who live on SSI alone, people who have 800 a month to live on. We are not investing the kind of money to make any kind of real difference for that group of people. And yes, there's maybe one or two or three or four units in a new apartment complex that's being built that might be dedicated to somebody who needs more affordable housing with a subsidy or is currently not being housed. But that's unfortunately nowhere near the number. And we frankly have not ever since I've been working on this for many years now, had a plan for the agency of human services. How many shelter beds? I forgot about shelters, that's temporary housing. How many shelter beds do we need? Where do we need them? How do we know if we're achieving and we're working towards a goal? Because the goal hasn't been set. We don't know what it is. But we continually get requests for more money for shelters. I'm like, okay, well, I don't know how to measure our progress. Do we need, right now we're about a little over 600 shelter beds, but are they in the right communities? I don't know. Do we have one in the Memorial County? Do we have enough in Memorial County? We do have some in Memorial County, but do we have enough? Do we have enough in Brattleboro? Do we have enough in Orange County? Nobody's doing that sort of systemic look and saying, is where we need to invest. And so it's everything from permanent housing to temporary housing, to emergency housing. And we say housing, but it's for the people that our committee has responsibility for, it almost always has to come along with a supportive service of some type. And those supportive services will be different depending upon the person that we're talking about. But we unfortunately see a return to homelessness if the supportive services are not there. And that is just like a revolving door and that's not something that we wanna keep doing because that is something that we are able to have an impact on with taking the money that we have right now even and directing it in the places that it needs to go. So, it gives you just, I was trying to convey to you the sort of the sense of the depth and breadth and all the different kinds of housing that there are. And I would say, this might be surprising to you, but the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living probably provides the largest array of different types of housing for people. And they do that obviously through contract with their community provider system. Almost none of this is done with state staff with the exception of some emergency stuff at DCF. But almost all of this is done through our community partners, the designated agencies, our recovery centers, our recovery housing folks. On the mental health side, there's some housing as well. And we support a lot of single families through the Reach Up program. The Reach Up program, some might consider partially a housing program because it provides financial assistance that people can use to help pay their necessary expenses. And I wanna be clear that the reach up programs are very low income individuals. It's not a goal to be on reach up. I think that there are some misconceptions about Reach Up.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Just Reach Up, Howard, does it provide rental assistance or other services?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: It provides financial, it's money. It provides financial assistance. What people receive is based upon a calculation of housing, of food costs, of all of those things. So, it's a calculation that's made based upon the size of your family, where you live, Chittenden County gets a little bit higher amounts And the cost of services in those areas, when I say services, I mean things like housing or the cost of food, utilities and things like that. I have to point out, however, as a state, we say, we do the calculation and we often base it based on outdated information. So, based on information that can be as old as 10 old in some cases. And then we say, so we do that calculation to say, this is what we should be providing assistance. And then we do something called a ratable reduction. That's roughly 50%. We say, we're going give you half of that. And good luck figuring out the rest.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Does it interface with Section eight?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yes, the Reach Up families are eligible for Section eight.

[Unidentified Member]: Yes. Right, and so is Reach Up sort of complimentary, like we've been given testimony that the Section eight vouchers don't tend to cover, even though we say it's 30% of your income, 30% of your income might still leave you very high and dry because it's such a small amount.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: You'll need SSI or SSDI and you're a young parent and you have Oh, I'm sorry. If you're a young parent and you have two small preschool aged kids at home, you're probably at home with them, if you're able to be at home with them. I think some of you may have seen something that the Joint Fiscal Office did. They haven't updated yet. Would require a lot of effort, but a thing called the benefits flip, the graph that shows these things that are stacked. And I first slopes because it's not really a cliff anymore when we did the childcare bill, it's much more of a slope. And it's not intended to be permanent. These are intended to be assistance to help people to get to a place where they can be self sufficient. But they are stackable representative. So Reach

[Unidentified Member]: Up looks at what other things have you gotten to complement with what do you need cash wise to reach your basic needs of housing and food. How many people are on reach up boards?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I don't know. We just had a $2,000,000 reduction in BAA because case loads are down, what the estimates are. The department uses, not state government, they use a contractor to do the estimates. So I don't know off the top of my head. Okay.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: How about, I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Unidentified Member]: No, when you're looking at those numbers, I'm just curious on, have you seen an increase or change, a shift, or increase, decrease, a shift in those numbers based off of the new federal changes and the work requirements and how those things play out? Has that factored in yet or has that not yet had an impact?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Not yet, because those changes don't go into effect until next fiscal year. So they will impact our deliberations in this building because they impact in FY '27, our state fiscal year '27. So, they will have an impact there. And the appropriations committee took some testimony about that this week. And it's a lot. And some of those changes are also don't make any sense. That if you're not gonna be eligible for Medicaid and you're working, the federal government is still saying, well then, and you can't buy insurance on the exchange. So, they're forcing people to be uninsured, which doesn't make a bit of sense to me. I don't understand that, but that's another whole sort of ball of wax. We are seeing the, I guess I would say the anxiety among service providers in the community, the parent child centers and community action agencies, the designated agencies around the impacts of that and the ability, or I think that people are concerned about the capacity of state government to really inform people in ways that are understood clearly about what those changes mean for each person individually. We do have community partners have gotten together and they have proposals about trying to have folks who will help explain that to people. It's a massive amount of paperwork, that now has to be done twice a year. And we'll be spending money, you'll see in the state's budget on Tuesday, we're gonna be spending money adding staff at the state level because it is essentially doubling the workload. It doesn't make any sense and it's not a cost saving measure other than purposely intending to uninsured people.

[Unidentified Member]: Yeah, one more, thank you. Also, so I asked yesterday, I asked this of Kathleen, since your committee handles most of

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: these things, I don't know

[Unidentified Member]: if there's anything that I'm unaware of that maybe I can share with my constituents. Am curious, I have a group of folks who are folks living with disabilities, and they live on a fixed income, and are facing rent increases. And so I talk about, we look at housing and all the different types of housing. And what I think what people don't understand is we're not just looking at people who are currently housed and people who are unhoused, there's people who are chronically at risk of being unhoused. There's a whole, there's all so many layers. And those aren't always people who are low income or have disabilities. Those are some people who are working class and work paycheck to paycheck. So that's a whole another conversation. But I specifically want to talk about the folks that live on fixed incomes and have housing vouchers and their rent is increased. And it's not a benefits lift, so to speak, because they're stuck in this place. And I guess Kathleen Burke was in here yesterday, she had mentioned, you know, well, that's why it's a housing choice voucher. They have the choice to move if they can find other things. But I feel like it's sort of a systemic issue of us. It's like sort of systemically induced homelessness if folks are living within a means. And they're there, they're housed, they're secure, and then all of a sudden they are no longer secure, but nothing has changed for that individual. Like they didn't do anything circumstantial to them. In your committee, in the Human Services Committee, are there things that I should know to be helping my community members?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I don't wanna discourage you. I

[Unidentified Member]: know, I know. This is the dilemma.

[Unidentified Member]: Yes. This is when we laugh or cry.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Or cry. Right, right, right. I think sometimes in this building, sometimes in the public, people have a picture of folks who are currently in the, what we call the general Assistance Emergency Housing Program, the motel program for short, you want to, I can't even call it program because it's not a program. In the course of the transition from COVID to post COVID, there are countless numbers of working people with families. There are close to a thousand children. Well, that's again in Vermont, a thousand children who are homeless in this state. And not all of it, but there is a large chunk of those folks who have been priced out of the rental market. They have one or two working parents. They've been working successfully. They have been stable. And essentially their homes where they've been living. I heard about this just before the session started, more examples of somebody saying, serving an eviction notice and they're going to renovate and then their rent is going to be increased because that's what the market will bear right now. And these folks are like, they don't know where they're going to go. I had a middle aged man with a disability, same thing happened to him. So difficult. I don't have any magic bullet. I mean, there is emergency housing assistance for eighty days, unless it's cold weather, those don't count towards your eighty days. And one of the priority populations is for families with children. So, but it is a

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: difficult situation. Does Reach Up recalculate? I mean, if you get, let's say your rent goes up and Section eight doesn't cover it. Reach Up doesn't take that into account.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: No, Up, the only recalculation that happens with Reach Up is if we change the parameters in this building because it costs more money. So if we update the residential costs that they use, the housing costs, if we update that to 2025, then that would provide an increase because we would have changed that variable. Or if we said instead of reducing your benefit by 50%, we're gonna only reduce it by 48% or whatever, trying to make some progress on that.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Are there people who are receiving reach out who are homeless?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yes.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. Could you just define for us, forgive me, but we're not quite as up as we should on the lingo, designated agency? Sure. Who designated them and who are they?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Okay, the designated agencies are set in statute, so they have that designation in state law. They are agencies that are designated by now it's two departments. It used to be one department. So by the Department of Disabilities Aging and Independent Living or and or in some cases, the Department of Mental Health. So in state statute, are designated as the sole providers for their region. They're designated for a particular region. Lamoille County, for instance, is for Lamoille County, Washington County Mental Health for Washington County. They're not all as clean as County lines, but that gives you some sense. So there are designation regulations. There's three different populations for which you can be designated. For individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities, you're designated to serve those people in your catchment area. For adults with mental health challenges and for children with mental health challenges. So, two of the designations occurred through the Department of Mental Health, and then the other designation occurs through the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living. And there's regulations that govern that, what you have to have for board of directors, your financial position, all of that kind of stuff. And it's been in the news recently that United Counseling Services of Bennington is on provisional designation right now for developmental disability services with the intent to de designate. Very serious situation right now.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Because they made mistakes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: This has been probably at least an eighteen month process, is probably closing in on two years would be my guess, because you don't just go from being designated to being de designated. There's a process and there's a plan of correction that has to be done. And so the state has evaluated their progress on the plan of correction, cited that it has been insufficient. They've found health and safety issues. So in the designation regulations, there are many elements that have to be just right for you to maintain your designation. And what's important about designation is that means that every part of the state is covered. Okay? And it means that if you have been designated to serve adults with mental health challenges, you cannot say no if the person lives in your catchment area. And they're requesting to at least have an intake. They still have to work within the funds that are provided by the legislature and the departments. But in developmental disability services, people, if they're eligible, you have to go, you have to allow them to apply. They have to go through the process. There's funding priorities. So there's different steps. There's no automatic services. And sometimes there's waiting lists for services. But what it guarantees for those designated agencies is that they are essentially the sole recipients of a grant agreement with the state for that service area. And they get to bill Medicaid.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you, I don't wanna

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I was gonna say, I got a couple of minutes and then I have to go and we can

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, well, it's up to you what you cover. Was just gonna say, it'd be interesting to hear about the new housing bill that you've

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: been- Why don't I come back?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Come back for that.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Because that's a longer conversation. Okay.

[Unidentified Member]: Can I

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: ask Go ahead, a question please?

[Unidentified Member]: So just in spirit of this conversation, and as we prepare to discuss other housing conversations, and this was like a general housing landscape, For framers of the committee and everything, can you help us understand? Because I said something yesterday and someone was like, did you just say that? And I said, well, it depends on if they are homeless enough. And I feel like there's people who don't understand the definition of what qualifies as being unhoused for you to be able to access benefits. And I think there's this illusion that we have this community of certain demographic of people who fit a certain model and identity. And that those are the people who are unhoused. But there are so many different layers to it. But when you think about that, we're talking about benefits because we're all like, okay, well, where's the money gonna go? Is this a good investment? Where should we put this investment? What does it take for someone to qualify for assistance for emergency housing, for emergency shelter? What levels? Just that's a quick summary that you

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: can probably say on your way up. Okay. Well, so you complicated by adding shelter to the question. So there's a, I guess I would call a loosely held network of emergency shelters across the state. Each shelter is privately operated. They set their own priorities. They set their own rules in general. They have to follow the state's shelter guidelines in terms of privacy and stuff like that. But they can set their own parameters around, these are the people I'm going to serve. I'm gonna be a family shelter. I'm gonna be a shelter for people exiting corrections. I'm gonna be a shelter for single moms and their children. They get to set that. And then they have to go through a competitive funding process with the Department for Children and Families for something called HOF grants, Housing Opportunity Program grants. Through HOF, no shelter is funded 100%. They have to do a lot of fundraising at the local level.

[Unidentified Member]: I don't think I meant shelters. I meant benefits. Should not have said the word shelter because that did complicate it. For people to be considered. Like the general assistance programs?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yes. So for general assistance emergency housing, the legislature actually narrowed the scope of who is eligible for that three years ago now, I think it is. We might be coming up on our fourth year, I think. And I don't have the list right here in front of me. I can get it for you. But it's essentially pregnant women. It's people with disabilities. Disability is defined as people receiving SSI, SSDI, or who can prove their disability through a medical certification. It is people with children. I know there are witnesses. I know there are people in the room who can list them all down by- It's the budget bill every year for the But last three to your question, if you are a young person between certain ages, you may not be eligible even though you're homeless. That's what I was thinking. And it looks like represent Pezzo has a question. Just a real quick question. So if that's the case and they're not eligible, are they required to at least refer them somewhere where they might be eligible?

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo]: They can refer them to a shelter program. One of these, we have 600 and some odd beds and so they can refer them, but most all of our shelters are full. And they're just for a roof, but we have had there's no supportive services involved in that. At the shelters or you mean? No, at the shelters actually, depending upon what's the specialization of that shelter, you do get access to some supportive services.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: But do wanna point out that we do have emergency cold weather shelters that don't have age requirements. And those are pretty much open to anybody, but the requirements that the state has set out right now is it has to be minus 10 degrees for God's sakes. Anyway, I could say a

[Unidentified Member]: lot about that. You, I thank

[Unidentified Member]: just have one very quick question. Just on a scale of one to 10, when you try to act, if I'm Joe lady on the street trying to access, like I call 211, how would you say that that bulk flow is going right now? Is that robust? So

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: it's very variable is what I would say. Depends upon what day of the month that you call. It depends upon what the temperature is outside. It depends if you're calling on the weekend or you're calling on the weekday. I think people have faster response times with two eleven, to be honest, and they cover nights and weekends. During some times in the relatively recent past, when you deal with the telephone number you call for regular state business hours, people could be online for a very long time. And of course, a lot of times people, they got limited number of minutes, have to hang up and DCF does not like people to come into the regional offices to fill out an application. They want people to use the telephone. So, can do better, let's just say we can do better. Well, you so much. We will arrange

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to get you back in here. I think this is great for the committee. I really appreciate it and appreciate your answers. My condolences for what you're about

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: to do. Thank you. You. We

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We don't have anything more for this morning. Right? We don't I don't Oxford? Oh, no. No. Afternoon at 01:00, we are reconvening and we are going to have four bills. For two of them, it's simply a walkthrough. For two of them, well, introduction. And for two of them, we're going to have a walkthrough where our legislative council will walk through these bills. They are all labor bills. One of the bills, the bill relating to mandatory retirement of college professors, which is really just a bringing us into compliance with federal law, finally, we have scheduled for possible vote. The intro, walkthrough, vote, always was just a so simple, I just felt like, let's just get it out. So, it's important for us to have a forum at 01:00, because at 01:00 is when that first bill is scheduled. Okay? Thank you. So we are adjourned for this morning, we'll come back at