Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Welcome back everybody to the House Committee on General Housing. It's Wednesday, April 8, it's 10:40, we are returning back to work. And now we're back to Section three twenty eight, an act relating to housing and common just communities, and we're hearing first from Kirsten Murphy. Kirsten, you want to come up and assume that we don't know anything about what you're talking about.

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: That seems fair. Hi everyone, I'm Kristen Murphy, Executive Director of the Developmental Disabilities Council. I was also the chair of the I-sixty nine Section five committee that created the road home. And I have been speaking about various recommendations in that report that would lead us on the first steps down the road toward permanent service supported housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Quickly, as I explained last week, our federally funded program had the permission to testify on behalf of our public board, which is led by people with developmental disabilities and as family caregivers. So I don't speak on behalf of the Agency of Human Services, which is our host agency, but on behalf of board. So why am I being before you today? I am not a technical expert on what's before you, but I am going to provide the context for, thank you so much, a proposal that we are hoping you will consider. So the Road Home responded to the legislature's question, how much money would be needed to stand up around 600 units of permanent service supported housing for the population, that is those people receiving developmental disability services? And the committee's best estimate was 5 to $10,000,000 a year for five years would get us along the way. That is not the only funding that would go into creating this housing, nor would all of this housing be new housing. It would be repurposing some other types of units over time. But that was what would get us along the way to rebalancing. Remember that pie graph I keep sharing with people where you see that about 80% of our service recipients are reliant on living with 18 family caregivers or in an adult foster care model called shared living. And both of those types of residences are least stable and sustainable arrangements for this population, which recall was promised an opportunity to live in the community when we closed Brandon Training School. And thirty years ago, we created a system heavily reliant on those residential situations, but the regulatory environment and the resources available have changed considerably over the years. So that is the big picture again of what we are seeking to do. In the original version of SB three twenty eight, which Senator Clarksons' committee worked very hard on, there was a hope that, well, 5 to 10,000,000 might be a little ambitious in this environment. Senator Clarkson built in the idea that there would be $3,000,000 that would flow through the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, would receive some advice from stakeholders around the use of that, and that that could begin to be a capital investment that would hopefully continue over the years until we got something approximating an appropriate distribution of housing opportunities. Senator Clarkson hoped that the state treasurer's office would be able to utilize some funds that are under their control to support that $3,000,000 and unfortunately that didn't work out despite a lot of support from the treasurer's office. It just wasn't technically possible. And Senator Clarkson was not able to find a source for that $3,000,000 before crossover. So that piece of S-three 28 came out of the bill. But Senator Clarkson does not keep up easily, does she? So you continue to have conversations, including conversations with stakeholders. What clever sort of bridge could we come up with in this current fiscal year? And understanding, and Holly will speak to this more, my major will speak to this more precisely, is that there is not $10,000,000 but $2,000,000 of funding that was not expended in 2024 for very understandable reasons. It was originally designated for some shelter, supporting shelter construction, and the federal piece of that project just didn't come through. Rather than not expand that funding, the question would be, could it be repurposed? And this would be a slightly different type of service supported housing than originally intended, which is why we need some corrective language and some direction in S-three 28 in order to try to tap into that $2,000,000 The Act 69 report was very clear and recognized that 5,000,000 to $10,000,000 was very, very ambitious. The legislature asked us what was needed. We also said clearly that we as advocates are more than prepared to scale our efforts within available But what really mattered was sustained investment over time, if that could happen. It took us years to get to this particular problem, and it will take us time to correct the problem. So some investment over time is more important to us even than the actual size of what's available from year to year. Check my notes here. The other thing I want to remind you about what the Road Home says is that it is a 13 plan where all the pieces need to work together. So we are very excited to see coming to the legislature this session, some possibility for tenancy support, a position taken from the pool of already funded positions that would get a specialist in housing for Gayle so desperately needed, and the advisory council that we approved about last year. But that advisory council will have fewer tools to work with without some capital investment. Those state funded possibilities for tenancy support might not be as useful to our population if we aren't able to stand up continued development of some housing projects for this population. Again, not all the housing will be new, there needs to be some capital investment. So these all work together. And having that fourth piece that we were hoping to come through the legislature this session, that critical capital investments, that would be a great loss to the overall plan that we're trying to put in place here and develop for you. I have a second reason for coming to you today, which is not in the suggested language. We didn't want to confuse you, but we are suggesting one additional sentence under the charge section six to the Supported Housing Advisory Council. In the original version of S328, when there was still $3,000,000 in it, a suggestion or language within there that said that PHCV would consult with, I'm flattered to say, the DD Council and the Developmental Disability Housing Initiative, which is a citizen group of families on how to utilize that funding. Advisory. Much as I appreciate the honor of being named in that way and the same for DDHI, I think it is much fairer that the advisory council be a body to offer some advice around the prioritizing expenditure of funding for this population. Again, advisory, we don't get to make those decisions. VHCb has its own board. But let me give you a real time example of why the insight of that advisory council is critical. So was probably six months ago. A proposal came to BHCB for a housing development in Southern Vermont, where I think it was originally half the units, but not a state, would be set aside for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities receiving services through an agency called HCRS, Healthcare and Rehabilitation Services. Springfield. Springfield, yes. You're in the woods. So this was the first time HCRS had brought forward a proposal, written a proposal for this type of project. It was also the first time that particular housing authority had partnered with a designated agency. And there were some real challenges in their proposal. But for VHCb, the kind of expertise in the human services side of the puzzle was not within their skill set. So this was very informal, but BHCBs came to me and said, Let's talk through some of these aspects of the proposal. This had to do with things like the tenancy rights were going to be held by These are people with high support needs. So two bedroom units where one was for staff and one was for an individual with developmental disabilities. The tenancy rights were going be held by the staff member. That just seemed logical to the designated agency. Well, it didn't seem at all logical to us who've been working on permanent supported housing for people in this population. Permanent means the individual with disabilities holds the tenancy rights. And in fact, that is a requirement under some CMS Medicaid rules. So was kind of information that was really useful to have. There were also some questions around what is the national norm in a mixed use development for how many units you would have be designated for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Certainly the other people with disabilities and the ability for that particular population. And there is a clear national norm that that shouldn't exceed 25%, both from a management perspective, but also from an integration, more because of the need to create average type homes and units and average type communities. So while one might be tending to put as many units as possible for a specialty population, A, we don't like competing against other equally worthy populations because there are lots of housing needs. And also, there's just a clear national norm. It shouldn't exceed 25%. So that was able to be talked through between VHCV and the applicant, but they needed this consultation. And we would like to regularize that type of consultation.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you have language you're suggesting? I do, but

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: it's literally one sentence and I will send it to you as soon as I'm out of the hospital.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Go ahead.

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: Could I ask you a

[Unidentified committee member]: really quick question? Sure. I'm going to make an assumption that it was more of oversight that the Senate Committee weren't specifically saying, We don't want the input of the advisory

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: council. Yes, it was not, it was, quite frankly, Senator Clarkson has tended to favor advocacy group and us. She originally named me chair in the bill, I was like, no, the chair should be elected. It just seemed like a natural thing to do, but I think it makes more sense for it to be the advisory council. Is your language? Language would be announced, new section D, the advisory council shall provide advice to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board regarding the expenditure of funds for the production of permanently affordable housing for individuals who are eligible to receive Medicaid funded developmental disability services. That is literally the same language that was in the original, with grammar changed a little

[Unidentified committee member]: from the original s. Yes. My question originally was the five that went down to the 3,000,000 and then I went to the two, so I'd like to know structurally what does that accomplish? What does, would, well, do I

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: will ask Poly Major to maybe provide some more information about that, but my understanding is that that would still leverage a certain number of new units. And a million dollars is a million. It's a portion of the stack of an affordable complex and other funding leverage like credits and other things. So it would go a little further than it might sound like, but I would be outside of my skill set to tell you We'll have Polly in a minute. Polly will be up to help you with that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you have a question?

[Unidentified committee member]: Oh, I was just going

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: to say, you're starving. Half of an apple is better than no apple at all.

[Unidentified committee member]: To make it as rudimentary as possible.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah, was just trying to wrap up

[Unidentified committee member]: a better point. What that What number? Yeah.

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: And Senator Clarkson was really clear with our advocacy group over a year ago now when Act 69 created this planning group. Stop coming to us with laws. We want to plan over time. Don't come and ask us for 3,000,000 for this and 1,000,000 for that. Use the existing processes that VHCb has set up. They're the experts to figure out how to leverage the most housing with that money.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I have a question. I was talking to legislative counsel because what I didn't see here in section six, under D, which is the reporting, saw recommendations for future legislative action. I didn't see any recommendations for future funding sources. You object to putting

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: I do not object to putting that in there. I think that we would make recommendations to the executive branch as well. Many of the ideas in the road home are ideas that need to be enacted. In executive branch.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, thank you, Kristen. Any further questions of Kristen before we turn it over to Thomas?

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: And may I just say one other thing? Just that I know that there are also some ideas in SB 28 around the kind of permanent revenue source. The council doesn't comment on where revenue comes from, but we will hear some good ideas from others about where it might come from longer term. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Polly Major (Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: Poly? Let's proceed. I'm further accurate Poly major with Vermont Housing Conservation Board, and I'll say I have to testify upstairs in House Ag at 11:10. So I do have an alarm set, which is two out of here

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: and

[Polly Major (Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: we'll keep this quick. So as you heard from Kirsten, there's been this effort to identify a funding source to continue the momentum that's been built over the last several years of building homes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We've certainly been in here testifying on VHCb's role as the funder of these homes and that we've helped six projects proceed and created 37 homes, but that is just a fraction of the 600 homes that are needed for this population. And we also served on the working group that created the Road Home Report and particularly did a lot of work around the subcommittee that looked at how to finance these homes and really identified that a source is needed to advance these projects. And I've been working with Senator Clarkson as she's been trying to identify what is the source that can keep this work going, that can keep advancing these projects. And so, no, as said, she was speaking with the treasurer and wasn't able to proceed with that source. But she continued to come to BHCB and say, What might be available? How could we keep these projects moving? And as we're getting towards the end of the fiscal year, we're looking at our pipeline and what sources might be available at the end of the year. We did identify there's one source, which is a source from 2024 that's specifically for shelters, that if as the language that the DB Council submitted, it could be broadened to

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: also

[Polly Major (Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: serve housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, service supportive housing, then it could help move another project forward. And I could certainly anticipate a question, why is there a 2024 general fund source available? And there's a good reason for that. In the 2024 budget, there's $10,000,000 that was appropriated to BHCB to invest in shelters and add permanent supportive housing for people exiting homelessness. We fully committed those dollars to projects and communities, but real estate development is unpredictable and there's often shifts within projects. So we committed $3,900,000 to a project that was going to build permanently supportive homes for people exiting homelessness. A really essential step in the continuum of how the state of the state's response to homelessness. The operation for those homes was going to depend on a federal source, the HUD Continuum of Care source. The federal government shifted this winter its policy priorities away from permanent supportive housing to help people get out of homelessness to focus more on a treatment approach. And so that source was no longer available to that project, and that project as designed was no longer viable. It's still going to move forward, that's the good news. They've pivoted their design so they're going to be a 4% tax credit program that's going to create affordable rental housing. That's going to be great. They're using a different source from BHCb to do that, but could not use this shelter and permanent supportive housing specific source, and so decommitted that. They said, VHCb, you should take this back and you should put it into another project, which is something we do quite frequently. But the state has now invested dollars for shelter into AHS. So AHS has been funding the shelter pipeline. BHCB has been administering those dollars for AHS. So the projects in the pipeline for shelter have been receiving those dollars. And so that's why we have this source late in the year that is available to some extent. And if this language was put in this bill or in this budget to broaden the eligible use, we can essentially take dollars that are meant for permanent supportive housing for people exiting homelessness and turn it into permanent supportive housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And when we spoke to Chair Wood about this, she said, I see really equal needs in both these populations. So she was comfortable in that conversation with this policy change. But I do just want to acknowledge that's where these dollars come from. That's why they're available. And there is a shelter project that maybe not this year, but maybe early next year could use some of these dollars. So that's why I don't think it would be $3,900,000 available to disability housing. I think it would be a smaller subset. And I think if we could set aside 2,000,000, carry forward 2,000,000 into next year, that would be enough to advance one or two more projects to get to your question about what would this do. It would be about one or two projects. We know there's a potential project in Williston. We're hearing about a lot of energy around a potential project in Middlebury. There might be others out there. And I think a key part of this work is just keeping doing projects and keeping that momentum going, getting more homes online. It might take longer than the ten years that the Road Home Report envisioned,

[Unidentified committee member]: but if we keep at it, we can work on this problem. So those two projects, how many individuals would that accommodate?

[Polly Major (Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: They're both very consistent. They're just kind of real estate opportunities now. So we don't know how

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: many units they would be.

[Polly Major (Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: We don't know. It really varies. It's a really exciting place to work because there's so many different models, the types of homes we can create. We might be doing tax credit, we might be doing therapeutic communities. And so each of those model types needs a different amount of investment per bed or per room based on what other sources they can bring in. Long way of saying we don't know exactly how many people would

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: be served, but more than zero. Did I hear you correctly also,

[Unidentified committee member]: you said money was shifted to treatment rather than the housing part?

[Polly Major (Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: That's my understanding, while following the federal conversation. It's not a source that we administer, so I'm not reading the Novo as closely, but just in listening into the federal policy conversations around housing.

[Unidentified committee member]: And that would mean rather than how can you get stable treatment if you don't have stable housing? I have deep concerns with the direction the federal government is taking in its response to homelessness. I think you have a couple of people that agree with that. And concerning how it's impacting this one project.

[Unidentified committee member]: Okay, thank you. So I just want to reiterate for the committee that this is not an appropriation because it has already been appropriated. I'm just going to speak for myself, and I know you don't have a long time, but I want to thank you. I want to thank the advisory council. Many of us in this room have learned lots from some of the Clarksons and how we advocate. I've seen the group just flourish and change in just such a great way. But I think going back to what happened thirty years ago with the Saudia the Dreidel principle is, as a legislator, as a state, we made a promise that unfortunately, I don't think we've made good of it. And so I wholeheartedly support this. I would love to see this language put in. I'm more than happy to talk to the chair and our legislative council. I want to thank you for continuing your advocacy and bringing this to us. I think this is something, it's small, but it's something that we can do. And I absolutely support it. So, thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. She has to be out of here. Any other questions? As she walks out the door.

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: I'm sure we'll have questions for you tomorrow after you visit my upstairs, so

[Polly Major (Vermont Housing & Conservation Board)]: have you answer those as well. Thanks, Molly.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, I guess what we'll do is give this to our counsel. Who's coming in at 11:30. Who's coming in at 11:30 to cert. Also, I wanted to report a conversation that I had with counsel about possible language for consideration by the committee. I mentioned to Kirsten when she was testifying how she would feel about, in section six, after it defines who's on the council, then there's a section D that lays out what the council does. And D4 is recommendations for future legislative actions, as I mentioned to her when I was talking to council, I was thinking, and funding source. Also, there was an interesting idea that was thrown at me, which is completely new, I had thought about, which, from a responsible source, and the funding idea was to evaluate, the funding idea was a charge, a small charge, a per acre charge, on land associated with second holds that was in use. Current use. And that that charge would yield a certain amount of money each year, and that it would be dedicated to developmental disabilities. And so I asked counsel, I I got a whole proposal, but I asked counsel, Would you just reduce this idea to one sentence and stick it in here as one issue that the council might consider as it evaluated things, just sort of keep this idea alive? And I did it because, as the witness was saying, it's not like we have found a lot of resources for this, we really haven't. At the same time, I don't think at this late in the session we're able to take up the whole idea. It obviously involves current use, which in turn would involve more than our committee, but I thought, why lose the chance to at least charge the council with looking at it and coming back to whomever they wanna come back to. So I just wanted to let everybody know that I took the liberty of asking council to at least put something out there for us to consider. I do not have anything else, and I think that we're waiting for Up till 11:30?

[Kristen Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: He's in judiciary.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, he's in the judiciary, so. In fact, he's in the Senate judiciary going through July. So why