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[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Welcome back everyone to House General and Housing, and it's still Thursday, February 12, and we are still hearing testimony concerning the housing funding landscape that will help us in our recommendations to the Appropriations Committee via letter late next week. And our next witness is Chad Simmons. Chad, come in. Hear your wisdom. Can you hear us? Well, either she stepped away or she can't hear us. But we still have a quorum in any case, and we have Saudia. Okay. Yeah. There is sound. Alright. Chad. Good
[Chad Simmons (Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: morning. Again, for the record, Chad,
[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: and then the housing and homelessness alliance.
[Chad Simmons (Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee again about our priorities for the FY27 budget. I don't have much to add from the first time I came in in January, but I did want to express our strong support for investments in Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and the work they do to provide permanently affordable housing for Vermonters. This has been a perennial priority for our alliance over the last number of years, and for good reason. It is the best investment that Vermont can make on behalf of the taxpayers to ensure folks have safe, decent, and permanently affordable housing. We believe that it's also a really good investment to address our homelessness insecurity and our homelessness crisis. As I shared yesterday and provided some data, our state is really struggling to ensure people have safe shelter. And so VHCb has been a strong partner in financing both the shelter system, then getting people into permanently affordable housing. So HHIV is advocating, continuing to advocate for a one time $40,000,000 investment in VHCb funding for the FY27 budget, in addition to the statutory amount of $37,600,000 through the property transfer tax. And we believe these investments will allow, as discussed and Polly talked about yesterday, provide some clarity for the pipeline to develop over the next couple of years. Sorry, missed Chris Donnelly's testimony that just happened recently, but we are in strong support of that pipeline being built out over the coming years and the critical importance of that financing and funding for affordable housing. I would also say too, I think the question was raised yesterday about the impact on taxpayers, and I think it's a fair question. And I think HHAV's position is that these investments, these taxpayer investments are critical to providing deeply affordable housing that Vermonters need. And I think in my testimony and our advocacy and other committees, and it's been clear that the investments in VHCb has allowed us to get people out of homelessness and then into secure long term housing situations. And then I would also add too that that provides some certainty for our housing partners, our nonprofit housing network across the state, to allow them to do the great work that they do. So I'm here in strong support of FY27 investments for BHGEV. HHEV is also in support of base funding for BHGEV. I know this committee is very familiar with those efforts, and we see that as an important tool in Vermont's toolbox to bring housing units online that, for a variety of reasons, health and safety reasons, may not be suitable for housing right now. So we feel that that is an extremely important tool. And I would add that our nonprofit providers are helping to facilitate, get those dollars out the door and into the property owners' hands to be able to make the improvements in those properties and get people housed. Those are our two housing priorities for the FY27 budget. And, don't want you to take any questions. I know I've shared in our previous conversations around investments in homelessness response, which we are working with a broad coalition of folks to get into the budget memo for the Human Services Committee as well. Questions for Chad?
[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Debbie? In that VHIP program, are you finding that when a tenant moves out that a lot of rehab has to be done to be in this? I'm not
[Chad Simmons (Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: familiar, or I don't have data on any kind of work that needs to be done. Would talk to our providers who do the work and work with property owners as well. Yeah, talk
[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: well I talked to Sean, Sean Gippen, he was with that program and he was voicing that they're, he was extremely deeply about it, that they had Yeah.
[Chad Simmons (Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Yeah. I I don't have
[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I don't think he's coming
[Chad Simmons (Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: in. He's coming
[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: He's coming I'm so excited.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other questions for Chan? I have one difficult question to answer.
[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Oh, I
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: don't know. You may wish to say no comment. It sounds as if you're saying our first priority is VHCb. So if all we had was not 40,000,000, but 1,000,000, you'd give it to VHCb?
[Chad Simmons (Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: I think state investments in VHCb are critical to our housing needs as a state.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: How about that?
[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: That was It is so very excellent. Very excellent. Yeah, very excellent. Good job, John. 1,000,000.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: If there was a million don't think I'm asking these questions hypothetically. If there was a million bucks and we had to decide whether to give it I mean, isn't going to make its way into our letter because but it might make its way into somebody's mind. If there was a million bucks and we had to choose whether to give it to VHCb or rental arrears, where would you put it? Yeah. Welcome to our world.
[Chad Simmons (Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Yeah, I understand the situation you all are in, and I think we are all in it, as I say. I think HHV's position will continue to be that we need to invest in all And of we understand that there is limited state resources. I would add that we are also in support of progressive revenue raising. And I do think that is something the legislature should strongly consider in a year that a fair amount of Americans got to see some extra money in their pockets, where a number of our poorest Americans did not. And so I think there is some equity and some serious contemplation that the legislature should have around raising revenue to ensure Vermonters stop housing.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you know whether HHAV is planning to testify in favor of the bills which do that?
[Chad Simmons (Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: We are actively exploring all of the bills and have not yet weighed in on the revenue ratios, and so look forward to having those opportunities.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Great. Other questions of this man before we let him go?
[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I'm sure we'll see you back.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I hope so. Okay, thank you so much, Thank you. All right. So, we're now gonna take a break. At 10:30, we'll be joined by Cameron Wood, and we will continue to explore the landlord tenant. Also, landlord tenant, Witness? A witness will be with us tomorrow. And she's a practitioner, and I think we'll have questions for her as well. Maybe inside that is, she represents Champlain Housing Trust and most of the other non profit landlords. So we should go offline, and we would be back online in approximately fifteen minutes. Now,