Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Good morning everybody. It is Thursday, January 29, this is the Committee on General and Housing. We're going to just a quick review of where we are. First of all, unfortunately, as I think some of you know, our Vice Chair, Ashley Bartley, was in a car crash yesterday. She was on the highway. She was rear ended. I'm not sure whether she'll be in today or not. She was not badly injured, but it was not an inconsequential crash. So everybody please drive carefully. The streets are more slippery than they appear. So we're gonna start today with three or possibly four witnesses as part of Mental Health Advocacy Day, which is today in the State Health. And then for the rest of the morning, we're going to introduce one, two, three bills, and also what we're gonna do, we're gonna introduce no, I'm sorry. At 10:00, we have a witness for our manufactured home bill. At 10:30, Cameron will be back, and we're going to have a discussion of the manufactured home bill, and the discussion can include people's suggestions for things that ought to go in the bill that aren't there now. In other words, it's sort of a markup, an option for markup. It's still a little early. We're gonna have more witnesses, so there'll be more opportunity to do that. But this is a complicated bill, so we decided we should do it more than once, so this is just for discussion this morning. And then we're going to have an introduction to seven twenty five, which is State Labor Relations Act bill. Kate Logan will be in to do that, and then we're going to come back to manufactured homes and have Ed Barnett from the JFO come in and talk about its fiscal impact, because if you remember, it sales tax, but allows for real estate transfer tax on homes that are manufactured homes. Then we'll have lunch and we'll talk about later in the morning, just before we adjourn for lunch, we'll talk about the afternoon. So, welcome everybody and thanks for coming. We're gonna start our testimony on the Mental Health Advocacy Day, which will go till 10:00, and I guess I'm going to start with Lindsay St. Amour, who's the Executive Director of Disability Rights Vermont. Welcome.

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

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Tell us your name for the record, and then tell us what you think.

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: All right. So my name is Lindsay Sainsmore. I'm the executive director at Disability Rights Vermont. I have been with the organization for a little over thirteen years now. I've been the executive director for four and a half. I am also, for the last four years, I've been the vice president of the Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights. So thank you so much for this opportunity to speak with you this morning on Mental Health Advocacy Day. Today is just a single moment in time where we've chosen to pay special attention to mental health and to the needs of our community members. But mental health advocacy should not happen on a single day or as a special occurrence. We all have mental health needs. It is a part of our humanity. It is a fluid continuum that impacts us all and that all of us experience. So for those of you who are not familiar with disability rights, we are the protection and advocacy agency for the entire state of Vermont. The protection and advocacy system was created by Congress after egregious abuse and neglect was exposed through a series of reports by Geraldo Rivera back in the '70s that went into a school that was funded by the state of New York to provide care and treatment to individuals with a variety of disabilities, And that really went unchecked. So Congress enacted a series of legislation that said there needs to be an agency that's going to monitor and investigate and look into abuse, neglect, and serious rights violations impacting people with disabilities. So that's Disability Rights Vermont for our state. We are also, because of our P and A designation, we are also the mental health care ombudsman for the state of Vermont. So that gives us an additional layer of oversight and monitoring for individuals who are in the custody or the temporary custody of the Department of Mental Health. So we wear a variety of hats. The P and A system doesn't only focus on mental health. What is P and A? Oh, sorry, the Protection and Advocacy Agency. So I might use a lot of different acronyms.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Remember, don't know them.

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: It's like acronym soup. So please, if I say something that you're not familiar with, please interrupt me and I will clarify what I'm speaking about. So we have a variety of different federal grants focusing on protection and advocacy for individuals with developmental disabilities, mental health conditions, traumatic brain injuries. There's protection and advocacy for individual rights, which covers anyone with a disability that doesn't fall into any of those other buckets. We have a grant that focuses on accessibility for voting, and as well as accessibility or overcoming barriers for beneficiaries of social security to maintain or gain employment. So we do a lot of work throughout the state. We are a small nonprofit legal organization. All of our services are free and confidential, and we really wanna try to make sure that people are empowered to really stand up for themselves, know what their rights are, and to be able to advocate on their own. We, of course, as a law office, can intervene and provide other remedies as necessary if they're unsuccessful. How

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: many FTEs do you have?

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: Oh, geez. Are a small staff of 10, including myself. We've got two attorneys right now. I'm an attorney as well, but I'm trying my best not to practice and staying in my lane as the executive director. And then we have some senior investigators, some advocates, our intake specialists, and some administrative staff to kind of make sure that we're covering everywhere we

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: need to

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: cover. Intake can be done just through our website, phone call, email. We try to be as a-

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Where's your office?

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: We're right here in Montpelier on 89 Main Street. We just relocated to the city center. And as part of our work, which is unique, I think, to the P and A and Disability Rights Vermont, is that we go into places that many other organizations cannot get into. So we monitor inpatient psychiatric facilities. We monitor correctional facilities. We can go anywhere anyone is receiving treatment, which gives us a really good idea of what people are experiencing. If you haven't been in any of these settings and all you hear are the stories from folks with that lived experience, it's still not quite the same as being in a segregation unit or being in a room in an inpatient psychiatric unit. So it's really empowering to do this work. I'm very honored to be in this role and to serve alongside the folks that I work with. For me, this committee has the most important and impactful task this year. Housing is at the very foundation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It is one of the most essential needs. Without it, all of our other aspects and all of our other efforts and all aspects of other things like healthcare, education, they're not going to be successful or as successful if we don't have permanent housing in place at the baseline. Traditionally, shelter was considered to be a basic need, but history and data have proven that housing, a fixed, safe, permanent structure is the basic need. So thank you for serving on this incredibly important committee. During the course of DRBT's work, we regularly observe and hear stories relating to housing across the spectrum of what that might mean for someone. We hear stories of discrimination when someone is trying to get their feet under them and a prospective employer won't even accept their application because their address is either associated with or is a known shelter location. We hear stories of individuals being discharged from hospitals, correctional institutions, inpatient psychiatric units without any stability in sight where the risk of failure is either more institutionalization or death. So people are being discharged into homelessness without a permanent place to lay their head. We hear stories of individuals living in their cars, even though, even through these dangerously cold winters, because there's not enough affordable housing for them to live safely. The gamble could not be greater and it should not be one Vermont is willing to make over and over again. We cannot continue to gamble with people's lives. Not only is this gamble immoral, but it's also discriminatory. The intersection between people with mental health diagnoses and other disabilities amongst those experiencing homelessness is extraordinary. In Vermont right now, according to some data from the ACLU, seventy two percent of rented households are severely cost burdened and at risk of homelessness. Homelessness itself has increased in Vermont by over 300% since the pandemic in 2020, resulting in 4,500 Vermonters, including more than 1,000 children experiencing homelessness as of June 2025. Of these individuals, fifty percent report having a serious mental health condition. Twenty eight percent receive social security benefits. More than a thousand people disclose having physical disability, a developmental disability, or a chronic health disability. And in some cases, perhaps all of the above. This over representation exemplifies the disproportionate impact Vermont's policies and practices are having on people with all types of disabilities. So now is the time to right this wrong. As DRVT engages in conversations throughout the State House regarding better access to community based services, healthcare services, educational and employment opportunities, it all comes back to the reality of where those same individuals can lay their heads down at night. Let's say Vermont flips the switch and starts providing proactive and preventative care to people designed to improve successful integration for all Vermonters and all communities. Appointments are made timely and services are provided timely. Prescriptions are available. Food security is available. Job opportunities arise and are given fair consideration. Educational needs are supported and met. If you don't have a safe, stable place to return to with these other valuable parts of your life, you will not have a place to put them down, to nurture them and to watch them grow. Until we house us all, we are set up as a state for failure. For years, I've been carrying around my hope for Vermont that I try to share whenever I can. That hope is that one day Vermont will be a place whose goal it is for residents to thrive, not just survive. You can survive with shelter, but you can thrive with housing. I offer this goal to this committee and I thank you for your commitment to the state and to all its residents. And I ask that one question you keep in your mind as you consider all of your policy considerations what impact does this have on permanency and stability? Thank you for your time.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Question for me. Are you a five zero one(three)?

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And, like what percent, I guess it's a lot, of your funding comes from the federal government?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Like 92%. Have you, one of the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: things we've been doing is talking to state agencies and nonprofits about what they think the impact of what's going on in Washington is going be. Do you have any sense as to where you'll be if the House budget or the Senate budget passes?

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: So it's been incredibly uncertain and, I don't know, scary, I guess, would be the best word for it. Making considerations about not hiring staff. We do have two vacant positions right now that I feel I can't necessarily fill because I don't know whether or not we're gonna be getting the same funding that we've historically gotten. Even the funding that we have gotten has been level funded over the years. So as costs have increased, we're still kind of just barely getting by. We do the best that we can, but we are constantly in a emergency preparedness mode where we're having to make sure that we're prioritizing our work into what's absolutely essential versus what we might be able to table. So it's a lot. It's a lot of juggling. It's a lot of recalculating. We've, for a while, facing kind of like a countdown. Like, okay, if this continuing resolution doesn't get passed, I may have to lay off everybody that I employ, which would be devastating because of the important work that we do, but also they all have families. All have lives.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Does your funding flow through a state agency? Which comes directly from who?

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: So a number of our grants are through HHS, ACO, the Social Security Administration. Those are the major federal What's ACO? The Association for Community Living, which may or may not be a thing anymore.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, right.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: HHS being Health and Human Services? Yes. Questions

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: from the committee? I think your testimony has been very clear.

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: Thank you. I try to be clear. I did forget to plug one other thing. If you're interested in the work that we've been doing around housing and making sure that people are receiving services in the most integrated setting, preferably in their communities. We did a documentary last year. We had a film screening here in Montpelier on January 7. We're going to be doing four more. The first screening is this coming Saturday, January 31 at the St. Johnsbury Community Hub at 1PM. You can go to our website, www.disabilityrightsvt.org and they're all with disabilityrightsvt.org. And there is an events calendar. But we have screenings in St. Johnsbury, South Burlington, Montpelier hopefully on Disability Advocacy Day on February 11, and then also at the Latchez Theatre in Brattleboro at the February. So if you're interested in seeing that documentary that highlights the gaps in our systems and the need for community based supports and housing, please reach out. And I'm also available with any questions you may have.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes. That film is about the Olmstead decision. Yes. And I wondered whether you, representing DRBT, have thoughts about the recommendations that were made by the Vermont Home State Commission who were never followed through upon? Or do you think that there should be a new Home State Commission altogether?

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: Yeah, I mean, the unfortunate thing that happened when there was a Vermont Olmstead Commission, I think back in 2005 or 2004, it was in the legislature. They said, create this commission, and then they sunsetted it right after they issued their report. So they identified all of these gaps and all of these needs, and then there was no way to follow-up on any of them. And it just evaporated from statutes. So it just disappeared altogether and all we were left with was this report. So I would fully support reinstituting a commission that was stable over time that could really report and monitor and look into these gaps, not just at one single point in time, but over time to see what progress is happening. So just to clarify, you would support a permanent homes that commission versus taking up where

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the last homes that you

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: mentioned left off? Right. And looking at that report, all of those same facts and statistics are true. They're just probably exacerbated at this point. So there isn't really a need to reinvent the wheel and do another commission, but really to pick up where they left off, reevaluate what has happened in the last twenty years, and then build some structure so that we can have some accountability for the progress that needs to be made in order to be compliant with Olmstead.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And just to clarify, the Olmstead decision was one, a Supreme Court decision. I can't remember what year it was, but it was around the turn of the century. It was 1996. Okay. That century. Yeah. Is to boil it down to one sentence, looked at the degree to which people are

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: The degree to which people

[Unidentified Committee Member]: are institutionalized, are housed in institutions, instead of being returned to their community in more appropriate settings. Vermont is, because of the way that we treat disability in general, Vermont is an oversubscriber to that system.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Our next witness is Caledonia Livingston from CBOEO. Are you going to bring someone to testify with you? Yes. I'll tell you what, there's a chair right next to there which you can unfold so that both of you could sit down.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Awesome. And if anybody wants to sit on these benches that are free, you could move through now before we Do you want to let folks through for you? Yeah, feel free to open that up.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Welcome, Caledonia. Tell us your name for the record, and if you have someone testifying with you, whose name I can't see, they should tell us theirs, and then talk to us.

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: Thank you. My name is Caledonia Livingston, and I am with the Champinelli Office of Economic Opportunity. I'm here with Jennifer Lovine, who is a Vermonter that I just met with a very impactful story that I think will go well with the information that I can share with you. You want

[Jennifer Levine (Public witness; parent)]: to introduce yourself? My name is Jennifer Levine, and I actually live in New Hampshire, but my son lives in Springfield, Vermont. He's schizophrenic.

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: Thank you for joining me. Once again, my name is Caledonia. I'm with CBOEO, also known as the Champion Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. My role at CBOEO is the Fair Housing Project Education and Outreach Coordinator. Through that role, I do fair housing education for any interested party, which includes doing trainings for the general public, as well as for housing providers and municipal officials. I also do one on one consultations with people who are experiencing legal housing discrimination or are just inquiring about the Fair Housing Act and what their rights and responsibilities are under fair housing laws. During consultations, I generally assist people with drafting reasonable accommodation and modification requests. And I also assist people with filing formal fair housing complaints as well. I'm here to talk to you all today about work serving vulnerable Vermonters and the additional challenges that people with disabilities face in such a tight housing market, as well as the impact of housing cost burdens on people with disabilities and the potential of great harm to people with disabilities if notice and response time for eviction process are shortened. CBOEO serves over 20,000 Vermonters each year through housing support, educational resources, economic support and development, childcare, and many other services. And our services continue to grow. Our housing advocacy programs offer statewide helplines for both renters and manufactured home residents. And through those hotlines, people call in and we help them get more information about their rights and responsibilities, as well as help them navigate specific housing situations. Whether it be through direct service, referrals, or education, we work with clients to give them important and timely information. We also connect them to community resources and suggest best next steps for navigating whatever situation that they are trying to manage. Our Vermont tenants helpline receives thousands of calls and emails a year from renters with questions about their rights and responsibilities, habitability concerns, people in receipt of termination notices or in the eviction process, people receiving notices about rent increases, and also just general inquiries about how to manage neighbor conflict or conflicts with their housing providers.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Caledonia, are you guys, just to clarify, so there's a whole bunch of regional community action agencies like Capstone here. You're one of those, right?

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: Yep, we're one of the five community action agencies.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Five for the the Champlain Valley area. Champlain Valley area, right? Yep. By the way, just for the case information, the landlord tenant bill that I proposed, CVO, EOEO, I'm grateful to them. They volunteered to run the landlord tenant rights and responsibilities education project that's in the film.

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: Many of our clients have membership in several protected classes, including being people with disabilities. Under fair housing laws, a person with disability is defined as anyone with a cognitive, emotional, or physical impairment, as well as people who are in recovery from substance use disorders. We see a strong correlation between people with disabilities having low incomes as many of them are on fixed incomes and in receipt of social security benefits. Our tenant advocate who runs our Vermont tenants hotline, as well as our manufactured home resident organizer are the first point of contact when clients are facing things like rent increases or lot rent increases. So I have a couple of stories to share with all of you regarding how people with disabilities have been impacted by housing cost burdens. After speaking with our tenant's advocate, Madeline Roberts, she informed me of a caller who moved into an apartment in Burlington in August 2024. The rent was $1,200 when she moved in. A month later, she received a rent increase notice for an increase to $16.20. And since then, her rent has been increased to 1,900 a month as of late twenty twenty five. Unfortunately, this client has a disability and was let go of her work due to not being able to perform her duties. So she's currently living on savings and is applying for services and looking for other forms of income, and also paying for her son's college. So this story just illustrates how people with disabilities can struggle to keep up with housing costs when their impairments impact their ability to work. Clients frequently contact us with support for back rent or security deposits to maintain their housing. Rental assistance is a big part of what we do at CBOEO through our community action agency. And it's crucial for people when they get after experiencing a rent increase. Also for people who are trying to move into a new space that requires first and last month's rent, in addition to a deposit, these costs can be in the thousands of dollars and very unaffordable for people who have disabilities and are on fixed incomes and might not have the opportunity to increase their incomes. Immense rent increases and unaffordable move in costs definitely make it challenging for people with disabilities to be housing secure. This also can increase mental angst and stress from unstable housing conditions, and that can take a toll on people with disabilities as well. Any person would be overwhelmed by their housing being at stake. So someone with a developmental disability may have even more difficulty comprehending the termination or eviction process, finding new affordable housing, and also moving out in a timely manner, especially to avoid eviction and not have that on their record, which can add more limitations for accessing new housing. Decreasing notice periods would create an additional barrier for people with disabilities as they would have to juggle navigating the tight housing market, housing cost burdens, and potentially experiencing mental and physical anguish for having to deal with all of this in a significantly shorter amount of time. In my experience, renters do want to have successful tenancies. However, those in protected classes may have limitations. This can make it especially difficult for people with disabilities to access and sustain adequate housing and can hinder their ability to practice executive function. A person with a mobility issue may have to look longer to find suitable accessible housing. Someone with a cognitive disability may struggle with navigating a housing search on their own and might be looking for support from a social worker or a case manager to help them with that. All these things can take time for someone who has additional barriers. People These examples all show how people with disabilities may require more assistance and more time to find and maintain housing. Additionally, Vermont has a large aging population, and it's important that we consider when age and disability start to intersect. Many of our elderly clients are cost burdened by housing expenses and would find an abrupt need to move to be really disruptive to carry out based on the status of their health and wellness overall. And I have another example to share with you. This person is a resident of Windsor County. They're 93 years old and they are a manufactured home resident. And just a quote from them to share what their experience has been. I've been here fifty two years. I can't understand why they need to raise the rent so much. If they keep on raising it up, I don't know what's going to happen here in the future. I have other bills. I have to pay two besides the rent. And the rent is almost half of what I make from social security. This client's rent has risen an average of 6.3 annually since 2021. And that outpaces her

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: social security 6.3%.

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: Yes. Thank you. And that outpaces her social security adjustment of 4.1% a year for a cost of living adjustment. So as the rent increases outpace what she's making, it becomes really difficult for her to determine if she can maintain the housing that she's in and also navigating, figuring out how to find new housing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you happen to know, do you know whether this individual is in a mobile home community, some sort of, mean a manufactured home community?

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: Yes, the people who we work with that are manufactured home residents are a part of manufactured home lots.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And do you know whether it's privately run or a co op?

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: I don't know that, but I could get that information.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, I'm just curious. Okay, thank you. Yes, Gayle?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: The rental assistance program in community action, is that for whether you have a disability or not?

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: There are some eligibility parameters which I'm not familiar with. I don't work for the community action program, but it's not just for people with disabilities or people in protected classes.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Okay, do you know if at one point it was three months if you were arrears then it only allowed three months but you had to provide that you would be able to start paying your rents regularly after that three months?

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: I do know that it was three months. I'm not sure about the conditions for that eligibility, and it's since been reduced to just one month of that grant.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We can find out more, Gayle, by talking to Kathleen Burke, because the Vermont Housing Vermont State Housing Authority. Vermont State, thank you. Vermont State Housing Authority runs that program. It's defined, it's authorized by one sentence in state law and defined administratively. And I do know that there are discussions about trying to make it a little more difficult. But, of course, there are funding restrictions. The landlord tenant bill that I introduced is a million dollars for that program. Joanne, I'm sorry to interrupt.

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: No worries. So similar to the client story like I just shared, there's a lot of elderly people who could potentially trace homelessness due to similar circumstances. And it's important that we don't wait for seniors and other Vermonters on fixed incomes to be priced out of their homes. So I'm here just to basically share that I think it's important that when creating housing policies, you all in this wonderful committee can consider how constituents that are most vulnerable to discrimination and displacement are affected. Implementing things like rent stabilization, limiting manufactured home lot rent increases, and prohibiting social security deposits that exceed more than two months rent could really benefit Vermonters, especially those with disabilities. And I really appreciate you all hearing my testimony today. I want to give some time for Jennever to share her story as well and hopefully have some time for questions if needed. Thank you, Jennifer.

[Jennifer Levine (Public witness; parent)]: So I'm Jennifer Levine and I just recently moved to New Hampshire. I taught in the small schools here in Vermont for over twenty five years before I lost my app site. My son has had learning disabilities and most recently was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm sorry, with what?

[Jennifer Levine (Public witness; parent)]: Schizophrenia. He has been disabled for the last ten years. Was in Beakman House for a couple of years and now he's living independently. He gets $1,900 for social security and he pays $1,700 in rent for a dumpy 3rd Floor one bedroom apartment. It actually has a two by four that keeps the back door shut. But it was what we could find. It's what we could do. And it's extremely difficult without mine and my parents' help. Layton would not be able to describe.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Questions of the committee to either of these witnesses? Deborah, thank you very much for that compelling testimony.

[Jennifer Levine (Public witness; parent)]: Yes? Something else.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Yeah. Thank you both for the work does and for for your testimony. Do do you What has been your experience to never availing yourself of any of the resources or attempts to reach agencies or services that might intervene on the behalf of your son?

[Jennifer Levine (Public witness; parent)]: HCRS has been What is that?

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: Care. Care. It's a

[Jennifer Levine (Public witness; parent)]: really tough and rehabilitation have been incredibly helpful most of the time. Had some bumps in the road. When Layton lost his housing at Beekman House, which is a housing situation in Ludlow, Vermont for people like Layton, they were going to drop him off as a homeless shelter. I called everybody and I'm not kidding, everybody and nobody could help. His caseworker at HCRS knows the guy who rents this apartment and got him to rent it to Lee at $1,700 That was a desperate move for us to get him housing because I did not want him dropped off at homeless sheltering. That would have created a whole bunch of other problems. So I would hear back from them months after I got him housing. So I don't hear from people and I'm very diligent at calling people.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Thanks.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other questions by the committee? Yes, Mary.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Thank you both for your testimony. Weren't they available any group homes that he could go to? No, no one had openings, nobody,

[Jennifer Levine (Public witness; parent)]: there was nothing available.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Thank you. Yes. Would just, what I've heard is that when a Vermonter is in crisis, they might get a spot somewhere, but not until they're in actual crisis.

[Jennifer Levine (Public witness; parent)]: And when they're in crisis, that's not the time to be trying to move them either.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. Right.

[Jennifer Levine (Public witness; parent)]: It's

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you so much, both of you, for taking the time to come to the State House this morning and to spend time with us here. It's been helpful.

[Caledonia Livingston (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)]: Thank you for having us. Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Our next witness is the Executive Director of Upper Valley Services, Gloria Quinn, who is with us in person. Spike.

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: Good morning. I always intended to be in person.

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: I just want to say, I try to get here as well.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, the agenda, yeah, it doesn't matter, it's better in person.

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: Boy, my heart dropped. The testimonies have been very compelling,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm Gloria, you should just identify yourself for the That's the only formality in the room.

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: I'm so sorry, I'm Gloria Quinn, I'm the Executive Director of Upper Valley Services, And I am going to speak with you, I have a written testimony that I've submitted, I'm just going to talk with you because so much has already been covered.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I was just to sketch quickly Upper Valley Services.

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: I know, yes, I will. So Upper Valley Services, we provide services to individuals with intellectual and developmental IDD disabilities throughout Central And Upper Valley and Central Region. We are designated though to serve people with IDD for Orange County. So that's a little over 200 people. We also provide services to about 120 individuals, mostly elders, through the Adult Family Care Program, the AFC program, through our program called Vermont Comfortable Home, and that is throughout Vermont. And that is community based care for people who qualify birth nursing home level of care, and they would live with people who wanna share their homes and share supports with them. So this ties to, I'll try not to jump around, but I'm trying to get to the most important parts. I'm here to support investments for people with IDD, for housing, for people with And you've heard already so many of the reasons, but I can speak from the program side of the house, from the agency side of the house about what it is we strive to do and what is happening for people with IDD. So where people live now, and I'm representing the network, but I'll try to be clear about when I'm talking about our agency and when I'm talking about statewide network. Where people live now, about 39%, so there's roughly about 3,500 people with IBD receiving services in the state of Vermont. Thirty nine percent of those people are living with family, aging family members. And thirty nine percent of those people are living in shared living, a shared living model. And this model Wait a minute.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So the 3,500, 39% are living with their families.

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: With family members.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That are

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: getting on. Many of those family members are aging.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, and then you said another 39?

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: Another 39% are living in the shared living model, which you may have heard much about. Is living with individuals or family members in their own homes and with built in supports. It's been a very cost effective way that people can be served, and Vermont is probably one of the unique states that has primarily focused on that as the model, it's cost effective, it can be very high quality outcomes and so there are reasons for that. I've worked in four states, as being my last chosen state to work in, retire in. But I used to come to Vermont all the time, not just because I love Vermont, but because I was always looking at, I've been doing this for forty two years. So we were always looking at Vermont and the key values and the quality outcomes. However, what has happened over time as people age and shared living providers are also aging and they're informing us as agencies that we've surveyed our shared living providers, 25% were telling us two years ago that within five years, they were going to be retiring in aging health. So, they've committed their lives and they've done an amazing job, primarily the vast majority. But we have an aging population. Many people are also living on their own with some intermittent supports. And there are people who have very high acuity needs that are living in their own homes with twenty four hour staff support, sometimes double staffing. So this is the range, it represents the range of needs of folks that we're serving the state of Vermont. I would like to just bring in that what Lindsay referenced. Approximately half of the people that we serve in the state of Vermont are diagnosed with co occurring mental health issues. It's nearly sixty percent for those that Upper Valley Services provide supports to. Let me give you one more fact. Just in October, we've been looking at, I call it this kind of the silent crisis that's been happening. So what we see or hear about, and that's a devastating example that was just provided, what we hear about maybe are just the very few that people with IDD who are unhoused or newly unhoused, and we don't even hear about that, our provider system, our designated agencies and specialized service agencies have been experiencing people on the brink of the cliff for a long time. I've only been working at this agency for five years. I've been the executive director for five years. And people believed, board members believed it was not a good thing to obtain housing for reasons, because they believed model, and it is true, the model, the shared living model has been very, very high quality for many years, but there aren't shared living providers coming in, not many, who want to be able to commit to this work. This is hard work and it's good work, but it's hard work, and it's twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, we are all on it. I work with some of the most committed people you will ever know, and I'm very, very proud of the work that they do. But what happens is that when someone is aging and can no longer care for their child, and what often happens is someone has been keeping it together on a wing and a prayer, and then they're going into the hospital and now they're not coming home right away, or maybe in some cases not at all. So, in October alone, one hundred and forty four individuals with IDD across the state of Vermont were at great risk of complete homelessness on the streets. So they are, and you've heard some examples, they're in temporary housing, repeat, some of these shared living providers will step forward and say temporarily, I can take these places in, they are in stacked arrangements, and boy, talk about there being no housing stock. We're out there looking for housing and it is expensive. So some of these examples were profound. Now we're putting staffing in, often this is without funding, and this is without the resources, and most people do not bring those resources to the tables themselves, and most families don't have those resources to assist. So we also happen to be the agent, there is a reference to crisis spaces in the state, statewide crisis resources. We operate those crisis resources. So there are six beds, six individual spaces that we offer to the state, and it is constantly filled. I've had one person, we've had one individual there with very complex needs. She's been in a temporary housing space where it's set up in a therapeutic manner to help stabilize, work with the teams, and assist them into another housing situation. We have one woman who's needed to stay with us now running on three years, and she's not blue because there is no place for her to go. And when we talk about the need for housing, stable housing, affordable and accessible housing, we're talking about also the staff supports or live in supports to go with it, where they have to go hand in hand. So I just wanna say that I was privileged to be on the Act sixty nine Committee. So I think this movement now that is cross sectional with self advocates and families and providers and funders and developers and housing experts to be at the same table is imperative, and we need the continued investments. The Road Home, and I'm not sure if you've read The Road Home, but it's a report that came out of the Act sixty nine Committee. We're talking about over the next five years, 600 units And that's I would say that this is really silent or almost invisible, because as stretched as our agencies are, I can speak for myself, for Upper Valley Services, through the systems reform change, through everything that's happening, through the obvious housing crisis that's happening in the state of Vermont, The vast majority of people are not taken care of in the way that they should be because people deserve to be in permanent stable housing. I think both people referenced that prior. The transitional housing is survival, but permanent housing is security and it's where stability can grow, and it's where things can happen from there, health, wellness, all of it. And that is what we really truly need. The permanency piece is a factor that I cannot underscore enough, and the trauma that has continued to be perpetuated for people who are in and out of housing because they do not have a place that they can call their own and they know that they can stay. It's imperative that we change that. I bring in my work in other states just to stay. And I love the state and I love the values and the models that exist here, but there's not obviously enough. I've never been in such nail biting situations on behalf of people for the predicament that Vermonters in general and Vermonters with IBD are in. So, for every person that you hear about, there are about, remember the one hundred and forty four just in October alone. It's a growing number of people that are near that unhoused crisis along with, and I was shocked at some of the numbers that were reported about, I wish I could remember, but the numbers that are actually with IDT that are actually homeless now. So I didn't have that number, but there's no one in our agency that we serve that is unhoused. But this predicament is so dire and soon to be untenable. So I would ask that continued investments happen for housing specifically, well, for everyone, but to finally include an earmark for people with IDD. I remember the self advocate, most people probably know, some of his comments reverberated in my ear, it's basically, we need the same as everyone else, we want and need the same as everyone else. I would say that the lack of stability is even more impairing to people who need the care and continuity of care on a very regular basis, not just to survive, but to thrive and be the contributing members to their communities that they really want to be and deserve to be. Thank you. Question?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I've got two quick questions. As Upper Valley Services, does your organization straddle Mountain New Hampshire? They do. So can you tell us about the proportionality between New Hampshire?

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: Well, mainly bring people's staff in from New Hampshire, so that's really our connection to New Hampshire. Are always trying to recruit staff from just about anywhere, and many staff can live more affordably in New Hampshire, and so we bring them over as much as we can. We do not serve anybody who lives in New Hampshire.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay, that's what I was actually asking. I'm sorry. And my understanding, having served on the health care committee my first term, At that point, the shared housing model really cratered in the Upper Valley, in particular. And I wondered whether, since you've been in your role for five years, whether you've seen any of that come back after that bottoming out.

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: No, and what I would say is, did not share that I was, Upper Valley is one of the Act 186 recipients, which we were really pleased about, but we've started some housing initiatives, both in Waterbury and in Randolph. So we've been almost fully funded. And so we're supporting housing arrangements that allow for people to be both in inclusive settings and small group settings together, where live in staff or built in staff supports can happen for six to nine people. And that is just kind of one piece of the hard work that we've been doing over the past three years, but there's so much more that's needed. We're very grateful to our funders. We've done this in partnership with Down Street Housing. So we're very grateful that there's more emphasis on this and more, there has been some funding earmarked for this, it's very important, but there's so much more needed across the board and with various models of housing. Sorry, I was just, I wanna say many people are asking for small group to be able to live with peers, younger people really wanna live with peers and they want supports built into the models where three or four people can live together. And that was exactly what cratered during COVID because the group settings

[Unidentified Committee Member]: couldn't work as such because of the contamination possibility. That was my understanding, and maybe I'm misremembering that. So just to clarify, did you say that you have been able to place people in Waterbury in group settings? No, no. So,

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: we serve people in Waterbury. There is Marsh House, which is being built by Down Street Housing, And there are three apartments set aside accessible, will be affordable apartments set aside for use. We will have staffing on-site. And so that will be a very nice inclusive setting for people to have access to downtown. So that's one setting, one model. Another model is a renovated home in Randolph Center that will have a garage also is in process being renovated as an ADU. So, one person will be able to live in the ADU in that renovated setting, and then the house will house two people with disabilities with rib and staff.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. I'm really not trying to needle the odds. I'm just trying to understand, if your organization is based in the Upper Valley, does that mean that people from the Upper Valley will be moved up to Waterbury? Only if they want to be.

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: No, not necessarily. We serve many people in the Washington County area. And so there are already people we serve that have been asking, and many of those families also are part of the large DDHI family advocacy group that I've been supported at. I've been allowed to be a part of at times, and we support those efforts wholeheartedly. So, when we talk about group homes in Vermont, and I just wanna say, in my experience, twenty five over thirty two of my years, my career were in Rhode Island. And there were vast investments in group living arrangements and homes in Rhode Island. So, I ran many, many group homes. It's

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: not

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: the same, it's not apples to apples. In Vermont, there are some licensed group homes that are operating and we have one of those within the state. I believe there are 15, but I might have the number of them along. And I came during the pandemic, so just wanna reference that too. So what happened prior to the pandemic, I don't have full detailed knowledge of. So the investments in housing that I see happening now are just starting to really evolve. The Act 20 B-six started catalyze that experience or focus on people with IBD who needed other alternate housing models. And that was really a profound start to this process. And now with the Act 69 report, it's really clear how the investments are needed. And it's a multi array of models. Many people need different things. Some people really, really do well in individualized arrangements, safe for them, safe for everybody. Some want to be with groups and can live in groups, some more independently than them. Sorry, I feel like I'm not answering what you really need. What really

[Unidentified Committee Member]: and I get all of that and I agree with all of that. There's no one answer. I'm just trying to figure out what your area I mean, really, geographically speaking, what your area of coverage

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: is. What Upper Valley is. Upper Valley Partisans. Are in Carnegie County. So serving people with IDD, are primarily, we're in Orange County, we're the designated agency for Orange County. Are also in Washington County. So not Windsor County?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: No. Okay, so Upper Valley meaning Orange?

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: Orange That and is what I misunderstood. Thank you. Well, that would be me not being a Vermonter forever, so I guess I'm a flatlander. We're kind

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: of at the point now where, I guess if there are any quick questions, we really have to move on. Thank you so much, Laurie, I really appreciate your taking time to testify.

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: If I could, and this has not been for any other reason as a reminder, if I could just That's somebody's fault, what you do.

[Lindsay St. Amour (Executive Director, Disability Rights Vermont)]: Housing

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: stress goals. Yes, alleviate stress are, it's housing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Gloria Quinn (Executive Director, Upper Valley Services)]: It's fundamental. So here for anybody who would like some. Up in transportation, we're gonna use some help. Trucks and cars.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: May I ask, people The Secretary of State's office is here. Can we go another half hour without a break, or should we take a break now? Which would you like? I'll take a break. Okay, we'll take a break. David, are you patient? Let's be back here in just five minutes.