Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you, welcome everybody. Today is the 01/22/2026. This is the General and Housing Committee, the House. Welcome everybody, glad you're all here. We have a lot of people from the Northeast Kingdom with us. I especially want to welcome back, and actually in person, Dolgin. Thank you for participating in the back, we're glad you're here.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Very glad. What I think I'm going to

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: do is ask the members of the committee who are here, we're going have a few more come in, but we have an illness, so we have some absences, but I think we'll have us introduce ourselves to you. So would you like to start? We don't have a 4. We don't, +1, 23456. He needs seven. We're 11.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Six is half Okay, of simple majority.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Ignore me then. We do have a quorum, I'm not going to ignore you. I want you to start.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: All right, well I'll start. Ashley Bartley, I represent Fairfax, a majority of Georgia, and very happy to be celebrating any kind of day because I've heard lots of great initiatives that are coming out that I think can really help all of Vermont, but especially our rules do count, so I'm very passionate about that.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So thank you for being here. And Ashley is the vice chair.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Thank Michelle Parsons, Newbury Topsum, and Groton.

[Rep. Thomas “Tom” Charlton (Member)]: I'm Tom Charlton. I represent Chester, Athens, Crafton, and Windham.

[Rep. Debbie Dolgin (Member)]: I'm Debbie Dolgin, I represent St. John's Ray, Concord, and Kirby's. Gayle Pezzo, I represent Colchester District 20. I'm Mary E. Howard and I represent Rutland City District 6.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And I'm Marc Mihaly, I'm Chair. I represent Caledonia, Plainfield and Marshfield, Northern and Central. And this committee deals with housing, also labor, and then other things that don't quite fit in any other committee, but our job is here. And we're really glad you're here. One of the unusual things about this committee, although a number of the people who are ill, who are not here right today, represent Chittenden County in various ways. The thing about this committee is that it really spans the state, and it spans the types of places in the state. There are people here representing very small towns, places where there's really not, you know, in true rural Vermont, not a lot of people, and then people in the middle, kind of like myself, and then people from Chittenden County. So, it's kind of a cross section, and we're really glad you're with us today. So, why don't we start? We have a quack. Hey, you want to introduce yourself? Leonora, why don't you?

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Oh my gosh, better late than never. I represent Essex Town and the City Of Essex Junction. Nice to

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: meet you. Oh,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Saudia is on.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Hi, Saudia LaMont, Lamoille, Washington, which is Morristown, Elmore, Worcester, Woodbury, and a small part of Stowe. There

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: we go. Alright. So now we have more than a quorum. And we have one more person coming, he's just full of snow, he's coming a little late. So, we're going to start with a panel of witnesses, and our first witness is Carrie Krasnow. Carrie?

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: That's me.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You wanna come and sit down? Sure. And introduce yourself for the record and tell us what you wanna tell us.

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: Thank you. I'm Carrie Kroeger. I'm here representing Headwaters Community Land Trust. I'm a recent board member and very happy to be here representing Headwaters. I have my little speech here and then also my friend who's also on the board and who's been on board a little bit longer in case anybody has questions. In addition to the housing board, which serves Albany, Crasberry, Greensboro, Glover, I'm also a small business owner, mom of two kids, longtime rancher, and a recovering city mouse. I moved to Vermont from Austin in 2012 and didn't expect to stay very long, but found that this area of Vermont had exactly what I wanted. Safe schools for my kids and lots of business opportunities, gorgeous, gorgeous scenery, people who are really engaged in civic activities and actually shaped their communities. Things that I had never I grew up in Dallas, so I had never seen anything like that. I could never have sat in a room with a bunch of representatives. So it feels really special. And I'm not alone, for sure. I've heard a little bit about today in my reference for these smaller towns in Vermont. Something I found striking was that Vermont's overall population grew about 2.8% between 2010 and 2020, according to the census. Glover, which is one of headwater service towns, grew by 3.7%, Greensboro by 6.4%, and Crasberry grew a whopping 11.4%. So these aren't stagnant towns. They're places that people wanna live. Good jobs, room in the schools, access to childcare is growing, lots of vibrant local businesses and some of the state's greatest natural assets. And not surprisingly, what's missing is safe housing that Vermonters can actually afford. Every day, Vermonters. And I think as one of the housing committees, already know that stable housing strengthens our schools and stabilizes the workforce, increases our tax base and supports local businesses. My experience has been that there are lots of housing initiatives going on and a lot of conversations about housing, but not a lot of action, especially in our smaller underrepresented towns. Headwaters Community Trust is taking action with early support from NBDA. Headwaters focused its first year on building trust and relationships in the community, engaging hundreds of people in those four towns and building relationships with statewide partners. For those who might not be familiar with it, the community land trust model creates affordable housing that's permanently sheltered from housing market pressures. So the trust owns the land, the families own the homes on that land. So this allows families to build equity and stability while keeping the homes affordable for subsequent owners. Same structure

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Let me just ask you a question, if I might interrupt. You guys own the land, right? And then the family owns the house. Is any of the homes mobile, manufactured homes, mobile homes?

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: It's a pretty flexible model. So we don't This is a fairly new organization, but there are lots in existence already. And theoretically, it's community driven. So it can be whatever the community wants.

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: Just to jump in, our portfolio is zero. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, that's okay. Just tell us your name.

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: I'm Michael Reddy. I'm one of the founding board members at our West Indian Trust. And yes, we are aspirational in our ownership and stewardship of land, but we have a huge amount of community support engagement in the team. So it's been a rapid development in the last year.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, you have a question here. You're not going to just get through it without question.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: And we

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: can hold questions. We can.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But we don't. Is

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: your mall perpetually affordable? I might answer your questions.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Please do, I'll stop.

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: Okay, so yeah, the families build up equity while keeping the homes affordable. Mike could probably talk about how exactly that works, but the same structure can apply to lots of community resources, childcare, healthcare education, and the community itself will determine what we would pursue. And like Mike was saying, we're still a brand new community land trust. So we're still deciding where that will go. We just had our first annual membership meeting last month. So dozens and dozens of people filled a small community church room to share their ideas and their hopes and concerns. And potential projects and partnerships are already beginning to take shape. This is the first time in probably the ten years that I've been renting in the area that I feel like we're actually getting somewhere after so many conversations and so many initiatives. And most impactfully, Sterling College, which some of you may know, which is sort of the heart of Craftsbury and has really been an institution for decades and decades is closing. So Headwaters is working with local partners to explore a community driven plan for the future of that campus, which could include continued education, childcare, and importantly, some affordable housing. For our little baby organization, this is like a huge potential partnership and it'll require significant resources and technical capacity. If done well, this project will ensure that people who wanna build their lives in Krasberg can do so and would keep the town vibrant for generations to come. It would also serve as a model for other small towns that are facing these big transitions. There have been many. Federal funding is not as available as it once was, of course, and statewide infrastructure programs like CHIP have been a really important step forward. But community land trusts like Headwaters are providing the local capacity required to make affordable housing a reality. I'm just here to urge the committee to keep supporting initiatives like this, that can really support the vibrancy of these small towns that help get some of the bigger funding pools and access to resources and things out of it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Elizabeth, do you want to introduce? We went around in NRV, so do you want to introduce yourself?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I'm so sorry. Bad. Unexpectedly. I'm Elizabeth Burrows, I represent Windsor One, which is Heartland West Windsor in Windsor. Thank you.

[Rep. Thomas “Tom” Charlton (Member)]: I

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: can't help myself out of questions, but does anyone else have questions they'd like to ask before I start?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Do you have any more? I do. So you had your first annual meeting, so exciting. When were you officially established?

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: The articles of incorporation were accepted in December '24.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: The turnaround time was like fifteen days for twenty

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: five, so we were kind of taken aback, like oh my god, this happened so quickly, now we have to do it.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I love it. One of the things that I've continuously heard is, I like to think, patting us on the back a little bit, that we have really tried to make Headwaters? On some of the bigger housing initiatives in the state, but oftentimes, specifically the kingdom tends to get left out. And again, I really try to look through the purview of what is our intention, Is it going to impact rural Vermont? But are there questions that, and this is kind of as everybody comes to testify today, like, there questions that as legislators that we can be asking of language in front of us, that we can kind of defer whether or not it's going to help the kingdom specifically, or more smaller rural towns. If those are something, know, like, hey, have you ever thought of this? I would love to know that. I think kind of looking at a scientific lens of what are we not asking? Why has this continuously been a gap? Selfishly, I think that would help my work. Stay in touch. Noodle on that, please, thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I mean, you're all here today, but it's not like we mind hearing from people. Okay, yes, Leonora.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I'm wondering about your infrastructure. What do you have set up?

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: So I know Crasberry doesn't have town sewer and water, I think that's true for

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: Is that what you're asking? Municipal infrastructure?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, ways. You you have land. What else?

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: No. Don't own land yet.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Are you based in Crasberry?

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: It's four we have four main towns right now, and also it's

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What are the four towns?

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: Albany, Greensboro, Glover, and Crasberry.

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: And the adjoining communities. It's the headwaters of the Black, the Lamoille.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Albany, Greensboro. Lava. Lava, okay.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: What was it, what one? Craspberry.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The Craspberry, just right next door to me.

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: Heard Mike explaining to somebody when we first got here that we don't have some of the municipal infrastructure is part of why some of the bigger programs.

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: Yeah, they don't work, right? We do have some ways that could

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: be said that we like are redundant to rural edge because rural edge is also a community land trust, but they don't really want to touch areas without municipal infrastructure. So, we're kind of filling a niche that that no one else is right now.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Not since the 60s. Yeah.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: A couple of just comments, I think that it's really great you're doing what you're doing, and you're just beginning. I helped start the East Callis Community Trust, which owns the East Callis store on Route 14 and rehabilitated it. And these community organizations are really great and they can make things happen nobody else can really. We do have a bill which we will be hearing starting a week from Friday, which is a rural housing finance bill, which is trying to fill a gap because CHIP is for medium sized and bigger projects. This will be for really small projects, and involve tax stabilization and other ways of doing it, so stay in touch. Any other questions of this witness, of these witnesses? Michael and Carrie, thank you so much.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Our next witness is Mike Moran, is Right that here, Mike Moran. Please come sit down. Carrie, if you want to stay, he vacated the chair.

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: Good morning, everybody.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Good morning.

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: It's Mike Morin, I'm the Vermont New Hampshire Program Director for the Northern Center.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Where is the Northern Forest Center based?

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: Are you in We're headquartered in Concord, New Hampshire. We work across the four state Northern Forest region from New York to Maine. I'll touch on that a bit here in my prepared presentation. So yes, thank you all for the opportunity to speak to you today. Again, as I mentioned, my name is Mike Moran. And so just as a little primer for the Northern Forest Center for those that aren't familiar with the center, we are a nonprofit organization working across the Northern Forest regions of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine. Through our work, we are helping to create a thriving and welcoming Northern Forest Region sustained by innovation and environmental stewardship. We bring ideas, support, and expertise to people that are strengthening economic opportunity and environmental resiliency across the Northern Forest Region. Our community partners often include business owners, municipal and nonprofit leaders, and local volunteers. Our work covers a wide array of programmatic focus areas that include the forest economy, outdoor recreation, and housing. Housing is what I'm here to speak about today. The Northern Forest Center's housing work is anchored on creating quality housing for middle income wage earners in nine local communities located in our four state service area. Here in Vermont, local communities are St. Johnsbury and the City of Newport. The center's housing work began in Millinocket, Maine in 2017 and we completed our first project in Vermont in the 2025 with the opening of 560 Railroad Street in St. Johnsbury. This newly renovated building provides nine apartment units ranging from one bedroom to three bedroom, as well as two commercial spaces located on the street level facing Railroad Street.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you know how much that cost, the whole cost of the project?

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: Oh, dollars 9,000,000. Yeah. That was renovating the old armory building and then served at the dance hall that we called Bertrand's Hall for a period of time. It's just north where Route 2 comes into Railroad Street, right by where the new food co op is being developed. In Newport, we are actively working with city officials in Newport Downtown Development to explore opportunities to make a similar housing investment. As part of our due diligence, we have interviewed business owners and leaders from small family run establishments to large community institutions such as the regional hospital to learn where challenges lie with respect to recruiting qualified employees. Across the board, time and time again, we continue to hear that a lack of attainable housing is the primary challenge facing employers who are trying to recruit and retain qualified employees. I think it's important to note that the center's housing work relies on leveraging millions of dollars impact investment funds along with grant funds to round out our capital stack on projects. But those investment funds need to be paid back. This approach to funding requires that we require a significant level of due diligence, including determining whether there will be demand for housing priced at rates that are affordable to middle market wage earners. Consistently, that demand has been affirmed first by the business and municipal leaders that we meet with and then through demand from prospective tenants. We've all heard about the missing middle as a concept. And as someone who spends his days working in communities across The UK, confirmed that those missing community members are being felt and severely impacting the viability of businesses, large and small. I'm here today to just urge you as you consider state level programs to help tackle the housing crisis. I hope it will keep this important segment of a community's fabric in mind and help ensure that the middle of what moves out. Questions?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yes. As we have invested money into housing as a state, I have gotten the impression that the definition of missing middle has changed over time, at least since I've been a legislator, in which the income level of the middle has increased, while it's not necessarily reality. So I wonder whether you could define for me attainable, when you say lack of attainable. Sure.

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: Yeah, the way we define middle income is 100% to 120% of area median income for the area we're working. And then we use a metric of 30% of monthly income to be put towards rent and housing, if you will, utilities, that sort of thing to consider rent attainable. Also with employers, we're inquiring about wages and these matters and metrics as well to figure out what affordable rent could be

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: for an area we're working.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: Do

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you continue as an organization administering these houses Who actually enforces the rent limitations? Sure. So our

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: model, we own the buildings for seven to ten years. In Millinocket where we started this work, we're just now starting to see that life cycle of a building kind of come to an end under our ownership. And depending on the economic conditions in the community, our most likely tool for ensuring that that building continues to serve that middle market is to use deed restrictions to limit future resale value. That's kind of the theory of the case, is to encumber the property. So it can't be sold, say, as an Airbnb or sold at much higher value than could be afforded by that middle.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So it's a deed restriction?

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: That's the idea, yeah. But

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: what's your thought about the transfer of ownership? For example, the East Callis Community Trust, which I helped start, we're going to own the store perpetually, because the loss of stores, the highest and best use is always residential, so stores get turned into just houses, if not convenience stores. What's your thought about what happens when you sell it? Who would you sell it to?

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: So in some cases, it's still really open markets to individuals that are looking Millinocket, that's an example, where we most recently started selling some the buildings we've invested in. It's been to individuals looking to move to Millinocket, Maine. We've also worked with some of our local partners up there. There's an outfitter that had a master lease with us for their employees, and they acquired one of the buildings to continue to utilize it for employee housing.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So it's subject to the same restriction when sold? Yeah. Right? Yes.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: How do you determine the income? Is it the whole family?

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: Well, actually don't do any sort of income checks. We're not using dollars that require that there is a cap on your annual income to live in the units that we're constructing or renovating. It's simply that we're setting rents at a rate that should be attainable to

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: somebody

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: who's earning that 100% to 120 of area median income. And so in theory, somebody could be making more than 120% and living in that apartment unit, but at the end of the day, we're just trying to get more units at that price point into the local market. Thanks. Ashley?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: As you talk about attainable housing,

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: anecdotally,

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: unless

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: you have data, I would love data, but do you see a difference over the border between New Hampshire and Vermont?

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: I think it's pretty comparable in terms of the challenges. I actually live in New Hampshire and Bartley, New Hampshire, and you have the same challenges in terms of affordable housing, tangible housing. I live in a home that if I was in the market today, I probably couldn't afford it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any other questions? Yeah. Mike, a thousand thank you.

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: Appreciate it. Truly, thank you for coming.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So our next witness is Paige Bartley. Have a seat, Paige. Okay. Paige, tell us your name for the record and then tell us what you're about.

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: So my name is Paige Hartzell. I am the director of Curve Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort. So that is the long term disaster recovery group for the Northeast Kingdom. And I'm also the Executive Council President for Northeast Kingdom Organizing, or NECO. And I just want to thank all of you actually for having us here and hearing from those of us who call the Northeast Kingdom home. And I've realized that it is early in the legislative session, and so we're really just giving you some things to chew on over the several coming months. Where are you based? So, well, we're in the Northeast Kingdom, we cover Caledonia, Essex, and Orleans County.

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

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: think. Mary, are you

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: Yeah, I live in Crasberry.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Crasberry,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: yeah. There's somebody who testified, Meg?

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: Meguela is right.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Meguela, right, okay.

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: So and and I'm just excited to see what you might do with some of these ideas over the coming months to support the people, not only Northeast Canada, but across Vermont, because I think a lot of these issues are widespread across the state. Really just a warm up for Mr. Caledonia, who's here to give testimony, important testimony that you'll hear in just a few minutes. Mr. And Mrs. Colbeth are just a few of the people that I've had the honor to meet ironically through the flooding that devastated portions of our region over the last three years. And the issue, of course, why we are here in this committee and the theme of any state house on this housing, and it's an important one. Yet it's intertwined so tightly with other issues that it's really a challenge to single out one from another. Food security, healthcare, including mental health, transportation, the crisis of social isolation, supporting our elders, and understanding the truth of how all of those issues intersect. And the critical interplay between meeting these materials, creating spaces that foster social and spiritual connection, and understanding the underlying forces of policy and legislation that create the conditions under which the majority of us are struggling to survive really cannot be underscored enough. And we all have to engage with these things critically and also enjoy and community and trust in order to build a system that works for all of us. And what we know and wrestle with both at Curb and at NECO is that climate catastrophe is indiscriminate. However, it's our frontline communities that bear the brunt. We need bold, creative policies. We need to take risks that do not continue to forsake our communities and displace people from the communities that are their base of support. So anyone who spends time on the rivers and streams of Vermont can see that we must preserve and protect our river of our doors to keep people out of harm's way. And the issue that we face in our everyday lives goes beyond party politics. And the reality is that we have to look for solutions that push us out of our ideological comfort zones and what we're used to. And I believe that we can find ways to move people out of harm's way, as well as providing safe, stable, and affordable housing. So some of what I am asking you to wrestle with and think about and keep your ears open for in this legislative session is to prioritize supporting and uplifting the grassroots work of the resilience hub toolkit, which there is an information session about that starting at eleven, and the nine resilience hubs that exist already across the Northeast Kingdom so that communities have the tools to co create better preparedness strategies together. And this is a model that can be replicated across the state actually. And I also ask you to support, even introduce maybe policy and legislation that removes barriers to provide housing in an innovative and forward thinking way, like co housing, elder care cluster housing, and the community land trust model, which is so important to help people build equity, actually, so that, you know, that equity is recycled back into the communities that people call home. And we believe that a housing first model makes stronger communities where people can thrive. As you will hear from the COBAS, they have been waiting for more than a year for a government buyout to come through that they were approved for so that they can return back to their community of support where they have lived for decades. They are from Lunenburg, they are living in Danville out of their community of support. And we are here to ask that the legislature break through these artificial barriers and dead end thinking and find ways to keep people in the places where they have built their lives and have contributed so much to making the Northeast Kingdom a place that we all love. Thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you so much. Questions?

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: And I'll do my best to answer.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Go ahead, Elizabeth. Thank you. Can you say more about the Resilience Hub Toolkit?

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: Yeah, so the Resilience Hub Toolkit is both available online, and you can also print it out and have it in paper form, and it is really like a template to help communities both identify, okay, we've really got it figured out how our emergency management works in the town and who to call, how to plug into that. What we don't have is a place to store dehumidifiers, or we actually don't have a community meal in our community. How can we get that going? Because resilience in a community is really built on the relationships that people have with each other. That's really where it starts. And so the resilience hub a is a place for people to really pull out ideas from this and tailor it to their community's needs, and also how to make sure that there's connection with the most vulnerable people in the community, identifying who those people are, making sure that there's a way to a touch point for them, and just how to be better prepared for disaster in all its forms. So who exactly is centered in mental pit? The communities of Vermont. It was a collaborative effort that was spearheaded by community resilience organizations and worked together with Cooperation Vermont, Northeast Kingdom Organizing, Curve, all sorts of different organizations. And I'm gonna actually call on Mike a little bit to talk about it too. So, we're all kind of wearing a lot of hats in this room. Mike is also a part of LECO and is also one of our construction team members at Curve and a disaster case manager also, and was instrumental in the Resilience Hub Toolkit too as part of the team. So I don't know if you want to add anything to what I said, my

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: You asked who was centered in it, is that

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: what you're Yeah, a legislator, nothing really to do with housing actually, but I have been really concerned about emergency planning with regards to people with disabilities and them not being centered in the emergency planning. So I wondered whether that was-

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: Oh, I see that. That was what you meant by center.

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: Yeah, there's definitely a section in the Resumance Appropriate where that is focused of how to accommodate the resilience planning for populations that have a different ability, but that's actually due to the debrief process yesterday. And that's one of the things that came up as far as who was engaged in the process of developing this and that was like a blind spot where like for whatever reason the convening of the process didn't actually back or outreach to the communities of disabled folks to engage. It's interesting. I'd love

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: to talk with you more about that offline. Thanks. Yes. So these these efforts so far sound very like this is great. There's very community driven and sort of bringing to the surface what riches your community holds. And I guess my question is, what's the role that you see for a statewide, what's the state's role in either spreading the word about these models or in helping you do the spreading of the word or, I I don't think you're asking us to legislate that every community has to have a

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: resiliency. No, but just because it's really a grassroots effort, I think maybe connecting with people in your community who are already working on a resilience hub in the community, making sure that people know about it, sharing the website with So the great thing about the resilience hub toolkit is that it is the server that supports the toolkit can actually function if everything is offline. And so, that's a really important feature of it. So, if there is actually a major disaster, people can still access it. It can also be printed out in paper form. So, I think just like spreading the word about it and really just supporting your communities creating these hubs is one of the most impactful things I think that the legislature can do. Don't know if you'd

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: like to jump in.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: Go ahead, go I

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: have a follow-up just to keep in mind in your answer. How much does the how much in your model, maybe not because it could function differently in different communities. Like my community is a mix of suburban and rural. Very, very mixed. My kids can walk to school and pet horses on their way, but they can also go see an IMAX movie. So it's varied. So how tied in is this model with municipal services and county services? I don't know. Like law enforcement, emergency responders, etcetera, etcetera.

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: I'm going jump in on the first part and then on the second part real quick too. But like, first part is I would say Land Access Opportunity Board, making sure they're funded. They were instrumental in the development of the toolkit but just supporting us on the ground, people that were already flood responding as, you know, we're mucking out the basements. So, it was to convene the people that were mucking out the basements that were doing that frontline work to like develop a toolkit and so when that's Active Opportunity Forwards has been a real support in that spiritually, if not financially, but they have just actually put out a letter of interest, a call for letter of interest to support Resilience Hubs using a lot of the toolkit language, it basically is $50,000 award for people that are trying to start or improve a Resilience Hub in their community. So that's super exciting, but just making sure that that funding doesn't evaporate or that other creative ways to support community preparation. But I think one of the beautiful things to me is that it's like even blue sky time, not everyone in our community is like healthy or safe or you know, there's like disasters that aren't as acute, that are chronic, that I think figuring out ways to address proactively as a community. And then I'm going to jump to the other part, it's like, I think it's the emergency management planning at the municipal level is scattershot. And it's like, it's different from community to community. We lock where I am, like we have no capacity as a municipality to staff the residents, however, to develop an emergency management plan that's actually reflective of our needs. Whereas Hardwick, they've done a great job and we've worked hand in hand with the Hardwick municipal officers, managers, in developing their emergency management plan. So then there's a great model for others, but the toolkit is kind of like a little bit different than the municipal level emergency level. In that it, yeah, it augments that I

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: would say.

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: But one of the things that the toolkit also really stresses is like making sure that Wheelock as a community knows that it's the next closest town or one of its next closest towns, Hardwick, has a robust plan. So how can they actually benefit from that? So it's also like making these connections between communities. Not just like one community has it, one community has it, one community has it. One community might hold it for a few different communities because of the capacity, the level of capacity. So it's also about making sure that the chains of communication are really open and how do we do that? We build relationships, Going and talking to municipal managers, for instance, is really important, keeping those lines of communication.

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: I don't many governments, I mean, he passed me at the county level, it was almost no too, but and I think like some sort of watershed analysis, so like looking at dividing things by watershed maybe more than political boundaries and being able to collaborate with people upstream and downstream.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Are these hubs regional or are they municipal?

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: They're regional and and town specific.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They are town specific. They're they're they could

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: be anything. Right? Yeah. So the Barton Pub is in the Municipal Building, Illinois. I know.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But if they cover only Barton?

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: Anyone's welcome to go. But I think the idea is to have dispersed dispersed hubs so that you don't have to go 20 miles to it, but that

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: and

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: that, so it's not strangers that are hosting it or facilitating it, but it's that your neighbors are.

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: So Brownington, you know, so that again, it's like, who do you identify as your neighbor town? And so again, one town may hold it for a few different localities just because of capacity.

[Michael Reddy (Headwaters Community Land Trust; NEKO/CURV collaborator)]: Greensboro ban is Smith Grocery, you know?

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

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

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Thanks so much. Thank you for having us.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Our next witness is Tom Lamoille, I think. Terry, I'm terribly sorry, Terry, I

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: my apologies. No apologies neither.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Terry, tell us your name for the record and your affiliation and take it away.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: Good morning, thank you for having me. My name is Terry Labley. I'm here through Northeast Kingdom Human Services, which is the designated agency in Caledonia, Essex and Orleans, Kentucky. And I'm also here as a CURB board member. I have had the privilege of living, working, playing in the Northeast Kingdom for over two decades. I have two beautiful children. My

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: daughter's

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: at the academy, my son graduated from the academy, and I have been at Northeast Kingdom Human Services providing mental health supports to our community for twenty two years. So I have the best job. If you want to know more about a great job, let me know, can share information. What I'm here for today is to talk about housing in the Northeast Kingdom. And you might think, why is a mental health professional here talking about housing? I have had the privilege of being part of CURV, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery since before it was CURV. When the floods occurred in 2023, the Department of Health, through FEMA, launched a program called Starting Over Strong Vermont to provide mental health supports to our flood survivors. And I was the team lead for that. It was only supposed to be an eight month grant, and then we got flooded again in 2024 and again in 2025. So my eight month grant of providing these supports for vulnerable flood survivors turned into a two year project. And then when our grant ended in July, I could not walk away from our community and I could not walk away from the work that I had been doing. And I got invited to join with her board so I could continue to be connected to that. So I wanna share some of my experiences with housing specifically. Over the last two years of doing this work, the mental health support. And when you think about mental health support, think about therapy, medications, having people come to you into your office and get those supports. Starting Over Strong Vermont taught us a great lesson of how to provide mental health supports to our traumatized community. We put on our muck boots and we went out and we went door knocking. And we tabled at different community events and we joined Curve for daily, sometimes multiple time a day meetings, and got phone calls on the weekend saying, Hey, we're mucking and gutting the survivor and they're really struggling. Can you swing over right now and help them? And what we have seen through our mental health support is housing is base of stability. And when the floods have hit, we are oftentimes removing our residents from their communities. And Ms. Chittenden is gonna speak a little bit more about that. And we're putting them in other communities where they don't have any support systems, their family, their friends are not around. We are asking our families to choose to remove the youth in their home from their school communities, to have a roof over their head. And then if they choose to stay in their flooded home without a furnace, without electricity, they're choosing to keep themselves in that community, but they're also monopolizing patients, and they're having to work harder because now they're running a space heater because their furnace isn't working and their electric bill's $800 a month instead of $100 a month. So we are creating barriers and systems where we could do more to keep people in their communities, especially, I know I'm really speaking about the natural disasters, but we are forcing our families to choose between their support network, which is impacting mental health on a greater level. It is increasing, we've seen increase in domestic violence, substance misuse, and it's having a burden on our systems as a whole. So I'm asking you to support any housing bill that you can to develop more opportunities in our rural towns and not just think about, love St. Johnsbury, I live in St. Johnsbury, love Newport, work in Newport, but thinking about Muhlenberg and Gilman, and not having our families choose one case that just tugs at my heart. Many, all the pieces tug at my heart. Ask these guys, I'm a softy. It is we have a family up in Morgan that I saw pictures of their home in a recent meeting, and they're flood survivors from the twenty twenty three floods, and they've been living in a camper trailer with frozen pipes and space heaters for over two years, and they're finally to the point of recovery. When we put people in apartments and remove them from their homes, they still have to pay their taxes, they still have to pay their mortgage, and they have to pay rent on top of that. It's creating a financial burden on our systems as well. And one of the greatest things I hear from flood survivors is the bureaucracy of our system is impeding their recovery. They spend hours and hours and hours every single week going to disaster recovery centers on the phone, doing paperwork after paperwork, filling out the same thing 10 times for different organizations. So thinking about that system development to lessen the burden on our already struggling residents.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Thank you for everything you do and for speaking to us today. And when you speak about these regulatory burdens or the bureaucracy, Are you speaking of state level paperwork or is it

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: express no one from the state will call them back. They have better luck with FEMA, and the challenge with

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Wow, FEMA that's a low bar.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: The challenge with FEMA is every time they call, they get a different FEMA representative. It's like retraumatizing our survivors. Have to share their story over and over, and the burden of proof on survivors should be a picture that their house is falling over a ledge, or they don't have a basement. It shouldn't have to be 40 pictures of this is what I've experienced. So it's overwhelming to a survivor to even get through the system and most of them quit and they say, I don't need that money. I don't need that help and I don't need that support. I'd rather live in this condition than fight these systems to recover.

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: I think that this is speaking so much also to the intersecting challenges, right? Because it's like people are having to do the three hours on the phone while they're also trying to work, while they're also trying to take care of their families in so many ways, while they're also dealing maybe with health issues. It is an extreme burden

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: on our survivors. We have a survivor in Morgan who retired the day before the twenty twenty five floods, twenty twenty four floods, I'm sorry, all the years are meshing together. And she said that she spent thirteen hundred hours on the film before she got her female settlement. Thirteen hundred hours, and she has every minute documented in every conversation, because she was retired and could do that. Could you imagine going to work, taking care of children, maybe elderly parents, having to pay $800 on electric bill?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, just for the record, just, I wanna also just register that there were a lot of legislators that have been affected by floods and their stories. So these stories resonate for a lot of people.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Questions? Terry, we get the picture. People are on their own effectively.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: It's the hardest work I've ever done in my twenty two years of mental health support.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Could you tell me how big is the board of curve?

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: Page, how big is the Bordeaux Curve? 10.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: About 10, right. And what does curve stand for?

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: Canadian, the United Resilience and Recovery effort. It was stood up after the twenty twenty three floods because we didn't have an organized way to support our survivors and a lot of great work. I kind of giggled to myself last July 10 when we got flooded again for the third year in a row on the same day, and it said, we were mobilized on July 11, and in 2023 we didn't know what we were doing, so we have learned a lot, we have a lot left to learn, and we need more resources to support our survivors.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm working on a bill with a representative from Middlesex and East Montpelier because we're worried about dam safety and what would happen if a dam collapses. And was trying to focus on the dam where more than 100 lives would be at risk, in some cases thousands of lives. And it's really eye opening to talk to the state recovery folks and to talk to the regional planning commissions and towns, and everywhere it's the same message, we have no resource. Carrie, a thousand thank yous, I'm really glad you came.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: I'm really pleased that I

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: had the opportunity to meet Mr. And Mrs.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: Colbeth, who

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: is next.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They are new, they are next.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: And I met them a year and a half ago, and they became best friends, and I'm happy that you get to hear their story today.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Great. We're gonna be here for another fifteen minutes, twenty minutes or so, and then take a break. So hang around, we'll, so, Theodore or Ted, you're next, and if you would like more than one chair, you're welcome to bring your wife or testify yourself, whatever you like.

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: Get off your list. Good morning from people.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: You want to tell

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: us your name for the record, Yeah. Because you're on video and what I've discovered, sometimes to my dismay, is that there's lots of people watching. Yeah.

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: My name is Cyril Olwitz, only eleven-twelve years old, and I live presently in Zander.

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: And

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: so bought my house the tenth, ten twenty four, twenty twenty four, the July 10. It flooded out, took all the foundation out of the back of it, and it would have made it unlivable. So, with town people, they got everything, the ball rolling to help us see what they could do. And they got a hold of curve and, you know, red gauze and all those people, and they came around. The was sent a man around, state came around, and I was represented by somebody the town recommended. His name was Sam Maine. And he took my case and he filed the paperwork for a buyout for the state of Vermont. So that was filed and everything. And I hadn't heard a word from Vermont, period. They don't even bother to talk to me. And FEMA, they did, they helped me quite a bit. They get the ball rolling. I couldn't figure out how come FEMA gets the case for my father to stay in Vermont. So, that went on for about nine months, then I went up to the post office, talked to the staff clerk when he was on the board before that and then he went to town clerk. And he just shook his head and I walked in and said, well what's the matter? He said your request for a buyout was turned down. Said, how

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: about you? Turned down by FEMA?

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: Yeah. I said, why would FEMA turn it down now if I were in the State of Vermont? He said, I don't know. He said, I

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: got it left from the

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: state of Vermont. Stephanie Smith called and emailed me and told me it's been turned down. Well, I said, now I wonder what you're to do with him. I hung in there for another month or two. I was going back to the post office, talked to him. He said I got some good news for you. I said what's that? He said your case has been reinstated. I said it has. He said yeah. Well I said I wonder when that's gonna take place. He said, I don't know. He said, that's all he was telling me. He then leaned back and forth to Stephanie Smith about it. And I guess he put quite a bit of pressure on her to see if we get something solved. And, I went along and I hadn't heard a word. And, every once in a while, I'll get somebody to call me and say, well, I can help you out. Or, I said, if you can, I'd appreciate it. Because at my age and my wife's age, we wanna be back in our own community. And that's what we're looking for. I'm I'll be 82, she'll be 78. And that's what we wanna done, get done. And we're having a heck of a time to get anything solved. So I get two fine ladies over there that are working for me now, and everyone that's had work in the past, they worked for little longer and they disappeared. I had a law firm in South Royalton working for me because they worked for pets. They finally they called up and said, sorry, we can't do nothing for you. We don't litigate cases like that. I couldn't figure it out because they told me they did. So I said, okay, if guys don't wanna do it, find me. So I've been hanging in there, and so far, recently, I've been getting some good people at workmans. I got a guy out of East Burke, but he went for a different thing, And I've got two ladies here to go over the case. And they've done pretty good. And right now, have you heard anything from FEMA? No. No. Heard anything from the state? No. Alright, yes.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Hi. Hi. Where are you living in the Main Southern?

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: I'm living in Danville. I ran off and, you know, my first stop, never.

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

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: off, I leased off him.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So is the home condemned to the point where you don't have to

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: pay tax? Well, have to pay taxes on the land and my garage. What the hell is no? Okay.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: And I want to share, when I met Mr. Koba, they had spent a night after the floods in a hotel and could not afford that, and then decided to go home and actually totaled their car after spending a night in the car as well. And they were gonna stay in that home that's falling over a ledge. It's completely washed out and one more storm and it's going over. And then I think we had them in one hotel for ten days and then another for a month and a half before we were able to get them the apartment in Danville. So there was quite a bit of community work for these guys, the minute I met them, I connected with them, and they're really great people. Mr. Klobuch is also a veteran and served our country, and should not have to fight the systems this hard. They lived in their home for forty four years. Do not have a mortgage, just live in the good old retired army.

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

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: With their son a

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: quarter of a mile down the road that popped over and helped with anything they needed, and

[Carrie Kroeger (Headwaters Community Land Trust)]: he's kind of the mayor of Bloomberg, he knows everybody.

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: My son would be able be right next door to me once. See, I've got slammed, water power tool and everything on it, and we've done a lot of prep work to it. All we gotta do now is put a cement slab in, And I I haven't decided to do it yet until I find out what's gonna happen. I don't wanna go spend that money on a cement slab and I can't put the fund, you know? No, I did. Two days after I locked the house, did,

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: I told my guy, fell asleep,

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: trying to find a place

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to live. And

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: it's been quite stressful for Norway, you know?

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

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: I've been outrageous, Mary.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Has the VA helped at all? Yes. Okay. And so where does this all stand right now? We're still just waiting to hear from from state and state?

[Paige Hartzell (Director, Kingdom United Resilience and Recovery Effort—CURV; Executive Council President, NEKO)]: So right now, as of yesterday afternoon, well, this morning, hopefully it's happened, I haven't checked. By Herman, who so complicated the disaster case management, particularly for CURV, as a long term disaster recovery group, There's a whole history of disaster case management with the floods in 2023 and 2024. However, Guy Herman, who Mr. Caledonia spoke about, just has a lot of community connection, so he's not working with Curb any longer, but he's continuing to help this process because he has a relationship with Mr. Caledonia. So he was going to reach out to Gary Briggs and Elizabeth Burrows this morning to just find out, is there any more information? And then we were hoping that we might be able to connect with breast singles to see if maybe there's something that breast could do to help this process. But it's just, what also seems to happen is it's a lot of like, oh, we can't help you go here, oh, we can't help you go And it's just this bouncing around. And like Mr. Caledonia said, they have a plan. They just need to get the buyouts so that they can move forward. And this is a lot of what happens in blood recovery work, is that people are in these states of limbo for months, for years, and it makes it so difficult to be able to take that next step forward so that you can just move on from the disaster and from the trauma of the disaster.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Go ahead, Mary. I would definitely speak to your representative today because this is really heart wrenching. It really is. People shouldn't have to wait this long to get an answer. And this is one case. Right. Just one case. I know they're there, but And then even go higher if you have to.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Was serious. Has anyone

[Cyril Colbeth (Flood survivor, Lunenburg)]: talked to Senator Welch's office? Or I called Senator Welsh's office and Bernie Sanders' office. No reply. No reply.

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

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: That's surprising to me. I'm just gonna say that. I usually we usually I love to get back to post usually. So I Especially a little Yeah. I will see. And I would just say that your rep your specific rep that works in this building obviously doesn't have authority on federal things, but our jobs as representatives are to help be intermediaries with state agencies because the state has to answer to, this is one of the co equal branches. So, would really encourage you to have a face to face, you know, have a sit down with whoever your state reps and state senators While you're here. While you're here, yeah, or even once you're back, but doing it face to face. Could

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: one of you guys give me on a piece of paper your contact information? I'm seeing Senator Welsh is coming to Plainfield today in the evening to talk about flooding, and I'll be there.

[Terry Labley (Northeast Kingdom Human Services; CURV board member)]: Oh. Fabulous.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: You guys should just go Just to the other

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: one more thing.

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: Would

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: would say, we'll get the bumps up, but I don't have to say that to you. Are there any other questions? I really appreciate you and your wife coming, making the trip in, and appearing before us. Thank you. A pleasure. So, yes, Tom, great, you have a question. Follow-up thought on

[Rep. Thomas “Tom” Charlton (Member)]: what we're talking about here is that this is common experience. In working through any of the systems that are set up to help people, the complexity of those systems can become a barrier to their ability to do what they're meant to do than what is I'm reflecting in twenty five years as clergy helping people with this paperwork and that paperwork and this program and that program. And I'm sitting there thinking, I will go live under a bridge. Because one, it is complicated and the lengthiness of it. When you go through a disaster like this, you are grieving the future you thought you had and you can't move on. And two years is like having a family member pass away and not be buried, maybe for two years. I have seen people experience this, not just with FEMA, but with food programs and even rent assistance and on and on. And it's more complicated now than it was thirty years ago when I started helping people. It is endemic. It's not just this program, but it's certainly very visible. Hear what you're saying, and it irritates me if it's irritated for decades, but it

[Mike Morin (Vermont–New Hampshire Program Director, Northern Forest Center)]: would keep me more complicated.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I think that we're putting a lot of burden on the people that are in crisis in order to set up some sort of accountability, but we have to find a better balance.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other questions or thoughts before we adjourn for a few minutes? What we're gonna do is we're gonna take a break, and we're going to return at 10:30. Thank you so much, appreciate it, and thanks all of you for coming.