Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Welcome everybody to House General and Finance. It is Friday, 02/06/2026, and we're doing a number of different things today very quickly. We have before us H-seven 72, which is a bill about residential rental agreements, and we have and we're gonna hear testimony on that. We also have before us an act relating to manufactured homes and limited equity co ops, and we're going to have discussion and possible vote on that. And in the afternoon, we're introducing several bills and also have some committee discussion because it's been requested that we submit a letter to our congressional delegation concerning the possible exemption from affordable housing of Build America by America, or the BABA which, so we have a draft letter and it will be before the committee, the reason that we're kinda rushing on this legislation is under consideration, it comes next week. So that's the day, and let us start with taking testimony from on seven seventy two, the rental agreements bill, and we're going to hear from Michael Monti, who is CEO of the Champlain Housing Trust, and Chris, will you be available to testify? Are you testifying also? Chris? I'll be here. Chris is here. Chris Donnelly, Director of Community Relations for CHD, is playing whatever role he chooses to play. Michael, welcome again, I don't think we need to introduce ourselves to you.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Thank you very much, I appreciate it, and as Chris says, he's always there. So I hope that he is there right now.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: He is appreciate here.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: He is actually He has a bodily presence.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Thank you. Thank you for the time for the committee and appreciate your work on this particular bill. Let me just say CDC is in support of H. Seven seventy two, and I will focus on that bill in my testimony today. Let me say upfront that we are in support of the entirety of the bill, with one small exception, which I'll illustrate later, and I'll be glad to chat more about that if you like. CHT is Vermont's largest landlord, and we work closely with our colleagues around the state in the nonprofit sector. And although I can't speak to their opinions to the specifics of the bill, I can say broadly that they are in support of the changes that this bill provides. Let me also say a few things that are different about our rental housing and our portfolio. As a resident tenant, when you are a resident of CHT, your housing will not be sold and you will never be displaced because of a sale. It will remain affordable forever. That permanent affordability is a key to everything we do, and it's a distinction that is important to remember. If you pay your rent on time, you will build your credit rating through the Isuzu program, which we have adopted here at CHT. It's a national program. If you get behind in your rent, we will provide you the support you need to catch up either through a 0% loan through Azuzu or by helping resident apply for a background program through the CVOEO program. Your rent at CHC is always stabilized and controlled and you won't be evicted unless there is a cause. So this bill supports those efforts and we embrace them. It restricts increases to once per twelve months. We're supportive of that, Increasing the cap at CPI plus 3% also is very positive. And deposits cap certainly at two months rent is also positive. Let me say that there may be some exceptions that happen through the voucher program. And I know that you've been chatting with the state housing authority on this and be glad to sort of see how that transpires discussions with the committee in this particular bill. We support those provisions of the bill that support tenants. I will say one item in all of this is that in the eviction process, we support confidentiality that it can be lifted in thirty days unless the party stipulate or the tenant was a victim of abuse. We support that. We don't really support the confidentiality should remain in place automatically for protected classes and for people with disabilities. And I'd be glad to chat about that. All the other provisions that protect tenants, both in terms of rent, CPI, all of that is something that we embrace. Now, a critical issue that the bill addresses is the eviction process. And here I will make a case that this too supports tenants, but more broadly. It supports tenants who live in our communities who are impacted by other tenants who often create conditions in our properties that become unbearable. Frankly, the eviction process just takes too long. So the expedited court process and improved notice periods are really welcome. Let me be clear, we don't evict lightly. As I indicated, we provide as much financial support as is available. Once again, we don't evict without cause. And even as we begin the process of evicting for cause, we step in to do what we can to reconcile those issues. We have 12 resident support staff here at CHT. Last year, they met with over 800 residents helping them with support that they need, not always on a rent issue, but on a range of issues to ensure that they remain successful both in their lives and as residents of CHT. That group engages early to prevent crisis and eviction before it happens. When an eviction is initiated at one of our properties, a referral is automatically made to resident services who will provide their residents with financial, legal, mental health and other services and support. But it doesn't always work. And that's because the people who resist the support are being evicted often for other reasons. There's a spreadsheet that we have here at CHC that talks, that is an automatic referral that goes from property management to resident services where an eviction process starts. And on the areas of the eviction, on the areas of that spreadsheet, which we believe things need to move faster, are these items, drug trafficking, drug manufacturing, hate crime or racism, sexual harassment or misconduct, or some illegal behavior that is causing harm to the greater community. Those are the things that we're evicting for that are most substantial to us in terms of impacting us as an organization, and certainly the people who we rent to. I have a spreadsheet here at CATs that shows the start and finish dates for our eviction process. Now some of these are gonna be outliers, but nevertheless are illustrative. One started in March 2024, is just completing this past February 1. Another started in June 24, will likely end its process in April. Another in September and was set for a bench trial two weeks ago. I haven't found out what the result of that was. These are certainly may feel like exceptions, and certainly they are much longer than typical. But in all, right now, we have 30 evictions that started before last September that have not yet been resolved. That means that behavior was happening in June, July, or August of that of last summer, and we're still working through resolution. This resolution of this issue is important to us. We don't come before you lightly in supporting these changes. We now have a list of apartments as a result of all this, are designated as safety concerns. About 12 have a do not enter warning. Almost all of these residents are facing eviction. Staff here at CHT feel unsafe entering those apartments. All of this costs money and time, money that could be spent doing good for the many tenants we do have who seek out help and support. In summary, the length of time it takes to evict is untenable. It is creating havoc in our communities and in our properties. We are housing the most vulnerable in our community, but our residents are most impacted by our inability to move very bad actors out of our housing. CHT staff are impacted. Our financial well-being is impacted. We need a better system, and this bill really step is a step in that direction. So, thank you, for your time.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Michael, thank you very much. I I do have a couple of questions, but first I'd like to know if the committee has questions right now for Michael and I I know people will think of questions as we discuss this further because that's the way this committee works. Debbie and then Leonora. When you're evicting for a cause, it sounds like good causes, but what happens when you go to court and the judge decides you don't have enough proof and so the case ends. I mean, how many times can you bring the same case forward?

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Right. I I, you know, I I I haven't really broken down all of our eviction process to very specific sort of what happens when. I do know that on occasion we're sort of very frustrated by a judge could, by law, give fifteen days and decides to give thirty days and extends the time period. That's principally it. If we're in court, we are typically winning, because we're not going to court unless we know we have a really strong case. I would say the exception, there's an exception, there's very few exceptions to that. There are times often enough when we will settle issues outside court because of resources or something else that might be brought into bear. That's typically what more likely happens. But again, haven't been able to, if you give me a set of questions on these, I'd be glad to break those down in very detail. I think the overarching issue for us is that when we know we begin to evict, the process period takes too long. We're almost always successful, because we're not gonna initiate something unless we know we really have something that's a strong case.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Thank you. Leonora? I was going to ask you something that you maybe so you're because you are unable to evict for no cause, right, you always have to go that route. Do you, are you taking up most of the court time

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: for these cases?

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: I don't know. I don't so. Cause I think other, you know, certainly other, and I have not tracked that either, I guess. But I would say that other, I'm sure other landlords have cause.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: And I guess I'm not trying to sound accusatory, even though I'll jerk What I'm trying to get at, I suppose, is just trying to get a sense of for whom is the current system working most inefficiently and where the toughest bottlenecks are. So if you say, I really support Study 72 and a great starting point, if there's anything specifically in there that you've I think we've tried to do it like the chair in his proposal and in consultation with folks, I guess, has identified, okay, if this is our aim is to do an endpoint of this many months, There are many elements to get to the shortened period. Are there certain points that you would recommend? Well, here you might, because we've gotten proposals that are very different from on the pro tenant side to the on the pro landlord side. And so I guess I'm just trying to think of where is there some wiggle room that you think would be positive. Just asking you this as somebody who has a really good, very intimate insight into the experience of going through the court system.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Well, I appreciate that. And I guess I was being more gracious to the committee and saying, if this is your bill, I appreciate the bill and I wanna support it as it is because it's better than what we have right now. And I didn't go into saying, make it 12 instead of nine or make it eight instead of seven or any of those kinds of changes in numbers. Be glad to do that analysis, but frankly, we know that when we look at the bill and we take a look and sort of see what the shortened timeframes are, that's the real issue for us is to shorten the timeframes. We believe due process is important. Part of that resident services sheet that goes from property management and resident services, we're gonna be evicted. There's a checkbox that says, does this person have legal representation? Have we referred them to legal aid? So we never ever try to sort of jump over people's legal processes. And I wouldn't wanna not take away due process for people. We just think that timeframe needs to be shorter. Those timeframes are good that you proposed. If you want us to do a very specific analysis, we could certainly do that. And we could get back to you on those. I wasn't prepared to give you, you know, ask you to change weeks to months or months to weeks or anything else like that at this point.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I do actually have a question about that. Before we get to it, my question's yes.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Michael, do you have data on the percentage of evictions with CHI, and if so, is it comparable to all evictions?

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yeah, we know the number, we know that, here's something, we have to start an eviction in order for someone to be able to get resources, financial resources sometimes, right? So the number of evictions that we might have at play may be higher than what we hope to achieve, hope to end with. The number of evictions that we have on our spreadsheet right now is around 60. This is 60 out of 2,400. That's a pretty low number overall. The number of evictions that we actually done is much, much less than as a percentage overall of our organization. You know, I always hesitate to do this kind of conversation because this is not who CHT is. We're not in the process of constantly doing this kind of thing. Most of our residents are actually doing great. We house the most vulnerable folks. We house the people with the lowest incomes, and many of them do fine. And frankly, it really gets into just a decent handful of folks who we wanna be able to move quickly, and we can't. So I have numbers, I haven't done those numbers lately or any given period. The last number was last year, 65 evictions in total. The numbers that are in process right now are around 85. Most of those will drop off because they'll be able to get some financial support.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: What's the timeframe in that statistic?

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: The last year.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: For this one,

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: that's Last twenty five twelve months. That's 25% of what?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: You said it was 200 before. No. No.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: It's 60 out of 2,400.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: 65 out of 20.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yeah. 65 out of about 24 to 2,500 units of housing. Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a much lower percentage than that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Couple of questions here. First of all, do you do twelve month leases? Generally or?

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: We do twelve month leases renewable. Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. Renewable. Yeah. Do you have the ability to nonrenew a lease as a device for getting a tenant out if you just

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: I think we have the ability to do that. We don't do that often.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Is one of the there are a number of points we've heard from tenant organizations, and I'm wondering if you have thoughts about, or Chris, if you have thoughts. One was, I mean, I'm talking now about the difficult tenants, the ones who either are posing, you believe are posing a threat to other tenants by their drug activities or violence or whatever. One of the criticisms of our bill that we heard was that, well, that really shouldn't be up to the landlord. You don't want the landlord to be adjudicating that and that it really is up to law enforcement or some other process. Do you have any thoughts about that?

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yeah, I do. Certainly, in situations where many of the evictions that we feel are really important for us, often enough we are, we do know that folks are engaged with law enforcement in some way. Many of those tenants may be arrested and actually have a right to go back and still go through eviction process. The eviction process doesn't go quicken because they've been arrested. Have someone just above me right now who's been arrested three times. They're about to be evicted. They're in jail, but they're about to be evicted. That process has not ended yet. So it does occur. I think I'm answering your question.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, guess what I'm wondering is the criticism of the bill was that we should not you know, we have this accelerated show clause provision, which is designed to be quick and force an early resolution of situations where it's hard it's bay it's based on affidavits under penalty of perjury, and in a sense, the tenant then has to come and offer contrary facts, or else there's no hearing, and it just it's done. But one of the criticisms of that is that it essentially puts the landlord in the position of saying that someone's violating the law and that that shouldn't be a landlord function, it should be a judicial function, or it should be the police. And I'm wondering how you feel about that.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: In a perfect world, yeah, sure, maybe, but not true in terms of what's really happening. What we have is an individual in a house who's suddenly opening and closing doors on a regular basis because people are coming in to buy drugs. What we have is a tenant whose home has been taken over by individuals who are violent, who can't remove those individuals and is afraid to. We know about that. We know about that before police do. We are managing that before police do. We will cooperate with the police when the police find out about that. And often enough, that does happen on an occasion where warrants are issued and we're in cooperation working with them. But I could tell you that it's simply not that simple, that the police will take care of it and we don't have to worry about it. Truth is that the tenant still has a right to be in the apartment. And we have watched situations where tenants have been released back to the apartment and they're staying there. In the apartment above us right now, actually, the police, the person has been arrested, and those person's friends are still there, and we're trying to figure out how to evict them. And so there's a little bit of that that's going on as well. Not that simple. Don't think, and again, I don't know why my tenant friends wanna protect these folks because they're in fact causing harm to the community and causing harm to the property, and in such a serious and significant way that simply I say, it's a law enforcement issue. That would be fine, but it doesn't really work that way. It doesn't work that way.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Thank you. A few questions. So first, the woman who you were stating, who sounds like there are multiple layers of things that are happening there, with the people staying in her place and she does not feel safe, etcetera. So would you then evict her? And so then she would be displaced and unhoused because of the people that are around her, instead of providing services? I'm confused.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: If there's somebody who is being victimized, then we will provide them with an opportunity to relocate in another location. That will be a cause for eviction for her, but often enough, if they are a victim, then we will work with that individual to find them another place. And we've done that. We had a four unit building where that was happening in Burlington in the Old North End. And we took two of the individuals and we relocated them temporarily until we could find them a permanent home, enabling us to manage the building better. That does

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Thank you. And also, so I'm just, on the side of caution. Serve a very large population of people with various, I don't want to say, I would say who have very low social determinants of health. So whatever that may be. Whether that may be people who are struggling with addiction, mental health challenges, etcetera. And I'm asking this question because before I became a recovery coach, I didn't know the difference either. And so what would be the difference of someone with OCD opening and closing a door multiple times versus a person who is having multiple traffic coming in and out of their apartment? It's the same symptom, situation, but very different substance. And so what I'm trying to say is that we, human naked eye, don't understand all the underlying causes that are happening for various reasons, for various people. And there are things that may look similar and look different, and I will be very explicit. My mother used to come up to help me with my children, and people accused me and my mother of selling drugs. Why is she coming from New York all the time? Because we're black. My mother was flying up because my ex worked for an airline and could afford her plane tickets. We didn't have to pay for that. So I on the side of caution as humans, as we have this conversation about behaviors that may look a certain way, and we have our bias and our lens that we put on that perspective of what may actually be occurring and what we think may be occurring. And I'm not saying that people are not selling drugs out of apartments, that's not what I'm saying. We know this because people are dying. So clearly there are drugs that are existing, and that's What the I'm saying is, our role in this committee is to ascertain the best way and implementations to address the issue without causing further harm, without putting victims out on the street, and without exacerbating any of the crises that we are currently experiencing. That's my opinion on what my role in this seat is. And so when I hear of the things that you as an agency, and I feel I understand the threat of, I'm gonna make an offering now. I understand the fear that your employees are feeling. And so I would like to make an offering that they maybe take some trainings, take some mental health first aid trainings, and learn what signs and symptoms are, and take some mediation trainings and learn how to protect yourself. And not even, because most of the time, fear is a heck of a drug.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: I appreciate that.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: And so oftentimes it's what we fear that is driving our behaviors as people not experiencing the things. It's what we fear that anticipation that is exacerbating what we think is occurring. So to help your employees work through that, because they still have to show up to work and engage. And so to help to call that, I would just make an offering that we would suggest that because it would help them get through their workday in a more amicable way, simultaneously maybe helping your residents navigate their challenging situations in a better way as well.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Do you have a I think there was a question buried in there, Marc.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: There was. I just wanted to make an offer.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you have any trouble? Do you have a comment on the comment?

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: I do. Well, I think I'll take it as a question. First, I'll reveal quickly that my son is autistic and has OCD, that I will also say that the 12 staff here who work in resident services are trained mental health professionals, that the whole organization goes through a range of training, both in terms of mediation and in terms of de escalation training to make sure that those issues are taken care of, that we have a full time now, which we didn't have before, a full time security person who is working with resident services, the people who do mental health work, and property managers to determine which units are safe or unsafe. So the designation of safe or unsafe does not come easily or lightly, that we would never just solely evict someone because of a mental health issue or OCD issue, unless we feel that we're not the place for the house, those individuals, in other words, that they need a better place to be, group home supportive services, something else that we can't do. We are working with the DDHI parents, you know who those folks are in terms of creating those things, resources for those individuals in a very substantial way. We have a couple 100 of our home apartments are supportive housing and group homes. And so we are aware of all of that. I just wanna be able to answer, not to be defensive about this, I'm trying not to be, really to simply illustrate that in fact, we don't do that, we don't evict just for a mental health issue unless we feel that we can move them into another location and get them something better. You know, if that process sometimes will provide opportunity, but we will mostly do the best we can to provide a space for that individual to be housed successfully. One of the things I didn't say to you is that because we are a large organization, we can transfer people and move people about and get people to a better resource or a better location or something where maybe they're not banging on the neighbors. I could tell you, actually, we have moved people because the kids were banging around too much, too far above them. And we moved families around just to simply make sure that even that quiet enjoyment of their home could happen so that we don't cause any harm for individuals. So thank you for the offer. I will be there next week. We could chat some more about that, but I would say we lean into that in a big way.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Gayle, do you have a question?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Yeah. You had mentioned before about friends in that apartment that you are having difficulty removing them. Are they on the lease? Are they peep they're not so is it basically squatting?

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's that's a by the way, just for the committee and also, Michael, one of the bills in the legislature right now, which is somehow ended up well, I know why. It ended up in judiciary rather than here, but it's gonna be recommitted on Tuesday to us. So it'll be before us. Yes. He's dealing with the issue of the invitee. That is some well let's put it this way. They're not a tenant. Mhmm. There is a case, state v Dixon, I think, which said that you a landlord cannot constitutionally no. It wasn't constitution. A landlord cannot just get a no trespass or trespass order against a invitee, someone who's invited in. I mean, they can get a no trespass order against a tenant that they evicted and then comes back. But the issue was what about someone who was never a tenant? They just come in, and very often, let's say it's a drug dealer, they come in and they're not really welcome, but the tenant really has no choice. So this bill overrules state v Dixon and gives the ability of a landlord to seek a no trespass order against those people. Michael, that's all I've just said more than I know.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: No. We support that bill. We appreciate that bill, and we've ran into that more than a handful of times where we've actually evicted somebody and somebody's actually jumped through a window and said, I'm squatting here and the police said we can't do anything. And it just drives me absolutely crazy, the fact that that could occur. So we would like to see that change as well.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other questions for, yes, Mary.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk/Member)]: There was a situation in a development whereby this tenant was allowing people to stay in his apartment who were drug dealers. He ended up becoming ill and was in the hospital, and these people were still staying, and the police department issued a no trespass to them. And they had, I don't remember what the time was, had to leave, and then he was evicted.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: What I would say to you is that there's some inconsistency between police departments, frankly, in terms of what they're willing or can or do. Some will, I don't think act extra legally, but certainly provide more support to us if something like this is occurring. Others will say, No, we can't go into the building, unless, you know, if there's a crime being committed. And it's really a wide range of sort of like responses. I mean, tenant friends are correct in some ways, that has not been positive for us. But ultimately, we wanna be able to sort of get to the root of the issue, which is the tenant maybe who's creating these conditions. And again, we don't see any eviction as being a positive thing. We only see an eviction being a positive thing when we know that the evicted individual will create a better community and better housing for their neighbors. That's often enough around these issues around crime and behaviors which are way, way beyond the typical norm.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk/Member)]: It's another situation where they're both constituents of mine, but person A and B continue to argue and fight, and person B has been known to fight with other residents. The police are there every week, and they have specifically told person B, you have to go back to your apartment, stay there, and then that person has come back down and go to the police again. Well now, person A is being evicted, and they have offered her another apartment, she's been there eight years, they've offered her another apartment nearby, that's not going to solve the problem. They have not offered person B anything. And person B really needs assistance. She has mental illness and really needs assistance. And she doesn't seem to be getting it, but person A now has gotten a lawyer and she doesn't want to move. So I don't know how this is going to end. But I know it does take a long time to get people to move. And another time they have well, evicted somebody but placed them in another apartment complex, which is worse off than the first one. I mean, it just is such a mess.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Again, what we will do is if there is someone who has mental health issues, staff will work with mental health staff or individuals like a Howard Center or other entity organization to get that person the assistance and get them to the proper and correct housing choice. That's something that we work on and make sure that we do. That's really important for us.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Leonora and then Gayle, and then we're gonna wind up pretty soon, yeah?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: So I have kind of a general question. So in our utopia where we pass this bill and the can slog through these cases more quickly, we have faster evictions. I imagine we would see a lot more of these evictions happening in the small, non federally funded landlord tenant situations because Michael. Because shorter, so it might, you know, be if we don't get rid of the wait. We're trying

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk/Member)]: to picture. Are we gonna are we

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: gonna create a whole new disaster of more people? You know, the the idea right now, one of the one of the one of the arguments is that we are gonna push more people onto the street and they might be out of the apartment, but where are they going to, they may not go anywhere else that's any better or worse, right? Like we might think that we are trying to create an incentive to not be naughty, right, by doing this. Otherwise, why are we doing this, right, I suppose.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Let me just say this, appreciate that difficulty. The context, again, as I indicated at the very beginning is we're an affordable housing developer. We believe in permanent affordability, we believe in long tenure, we believe in just cause and the bill balances those things. And that's why we believe that bill does the right thing in terms of that. We are, for us, we're facing spending too much money, too many resources, and impacting too many current residents with evictions that are taking too long. And just, it isn't just because, it's because of those things. And I think that that's why we support sort of a quicker process. You should know then I think for many of our nonprofit partners and like, as you indicated, the others who are housing authorities who are doing this work, certainly we know that these units will be filled with people who are in need, who need our support, who need affordable housing. So there's not a shortage of responsiveness to it. For us, we will wind up frankly not having to have these bad actors in our housing who are creating harm. That's the only thing that There's a few things that keep me up at night. This is the one that does. I've had property managers who have been threatened, property managers whose cars have been slashed, property managers who have seen guns drawn. That's who we need to move on, yeah. So, know, again, we believe in the balance of these things, and I think the bill does balance this in terms of giving tenants more rights, more opportunity to stay who are serving and doing well. I can't tell you that I can solve this issue, this bigger, broader, bigger, you know, issue around what do we do with everyone who needs housing. We're housing as many homeless people as we can, and 95 of them are being housed with us successfully, which is a pretty high number, frankly. And so, you know, we're doing our part in terms of that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, Gayle and Bill, I

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk/Member)]: think we've got to wind up. There's a question here, Mr. Chair, do

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: you know the bill number, looking up squatters' rights in Vermont? Oh, yeah, it's 77

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: 28.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: 728, I think. Is that it?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I think so.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, and it will be referred to us.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Michael, thank you so much for taking time to be with us. Really appreciate it.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yes. And let me just say, let me just end this, I appreciate the time. I'm ready to come back. I'll be ready to provide you with more details. I will be there next Friday. And let me just say this, every eviction we believe here, every eviction is a failure somewhere. And so we don't do this lightly. And we do everything we can to avoid it. But when we know that it's so justified, there is just cause to this eviction, we need to be able to move faster as well.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Thank you for letting me jumping in there like that. Appreciate it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: All right, thank you. Members of the committee, we are going to start at 11:15. That's five minutes from now. So I'm gonna encourage everyone to take a break for five minutes before we take up 07:57, which is the manufacturing