Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Jesse Bridges]: Alright. We are live.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright. Welcome back, everyone. 09:30. And our final order of committee business this morning is we have guests, from advocacy day within the nonprofit sector and done a lot of work with various stakeholder groups throughout the arc of time in this committee. So we have some guests here for them to come in and just present some of their perspectives. So we're going to start off with Lee Brenner, the staff attorney for the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project.

[Leah Brenner]: Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for having me. It's truly an honor to be here with you this morning. My name is Leah Brenner. My pronouns are sheher. I am a staff attorney with the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, Orange VAP, as you may have heard it referenced. Thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to talk about the ability to lift up Common Good Vermont and the nonprofit support that they offer across Vermont, and also to hopefully give some perspective on how VAP has fared over the last very busy year. And kind of as an example of a nonprofit who lost almost all of our funding and was able to pivot pretty quickly in a way that we hope to support Common Good Vermont in doing the same for other nonprofits across Vermont. Vermont nonprofits, believe the statistic is one out of three Vermonters is employed by a nonprofit across the state. We have a small state and a lot of the work is done by our incredible nonprofits. They're delivering high quality mission driven services under significant pressure, which is only increasing. The limiting factor is no longer commitment or innovation, but it's really coordination infrastructure. If we can really support nonprofits to do their work, do it well, and do it efficiently, then we all thrive. When we're not sure who's laying or who's doing what, or who is staying open, or who's having to let staff go, I think the sector suffers. And of course, as a result, then the Vermonters that we all serve suffer. So using immigration legal services, which we provide, and just a little bit of background, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, We provide completely free legal services to folks needing immigration legal help across Vermont. We primarily focus on humanitarian services. So there are things like, you may have heard of it, like student visas and work visas. Other folks handle those, we often say, of the blood, sweat, or tear pathways to some type of immigration protection, we really only focus on the tiers section at VAP. So things like asylum, things like refugee status, things like special immigrant and juvenile status. These are all those are the folks in Vermont that we specifically offer our free services to. We also work really closely. We have many, many cases of folks who are detained in Vermont facilities by ICE. Many of those are our clients as well. So that's the kind of work that we're offering. So using our immigration legal services as kind of a case study, that shows that coordination determines whether or not services reach people efficiently and equitably. We've worked really hard over the last year to create a statewide intake system. Not to say that VAP is going to take every single client across the state, because there are multiple organizations that do this work. But we've worked really closely with those organizations to try to create one single form, so that if you, as a client or someone close to you, is seeking immigration legal help, you can come to this form, it will come through VAP, and then we will work with all of the other organizations who provide these services in Vermont to make sure that we connect you to one of them, even if it's not us. And so again, efficiency, equity, in the past, some one person, especially in a crisis, might email all six of the immigration organizations. And especially unless it's a group email, we're not even sure who they've contacted. And so there have been times where different attorneys at two different organizations have started to help the same client. And I understand it from the client perspective. They're in crisis and they want to throw as many balls as possible and really try to find that help. But then we have two attorneys who are spending very precious hours on the same client. Mean, like And only one of them is able to actually continue. So after a while we figure out like, oh, we started that. You guys also started that. Who's actually taking it? There's confusion. So an example of this sort of coordinated infrastructure allows us all to be on the same page. We know exactly who's taking what. And the other attorneys can continue with their current clients, can then take new clients as those come in. And so that's a model that works across any nonprofit. Any Vermonter who needs a service from a nonprofit in Vermont can benefit from that type of coordination. Nonprofits in Vermont are already carrying many of the core functions that the state relies on. And so without some of those shared systems and coordination, again, our organizations duplicate efforts, we lose time, and often even leave needs unmet. In contrast with coordination, even a small state ecosystem like Vermont can operate at a really high level of impact and sophistication. And so just for some numbers for you, in 2025, approximately 800 individuals were detained by ICE in Vermont. And through the rapid improvised coordination that we were able to offer at the time, VAP and our legal partners were able to reach about 150 of those for direct legal services, which is a pretty huge success under the circumstances. And that success reflects strong nonprofit coordination, but also highlights the gap. If we had had the coordinated infrastructure in place earlier, we could have reached significantly more of that 800 people. Faster and with less strain on our consistent examples of trying to figure out, realizing that we had contacted a client who had already sustained representation. So essentially coordination through is not funding, but it's really what turns strong nonprofits into a functioning statewide system, which in Vermont, I think is incredibly, incredibly important. I mentioned earlier that that is kind of a success story of a nonprofit who lost our funding and was able to pivot really quickly. We're also very new. It started with a board, but without any staff a few years ago. All of our staff, aside from our executive director, Jill Martin Diaz, began, I believe, in the 2024. There were two fellows who joined then. I joined in May 2025. So that brought us up to four. And we now have a staff of 12. And that is I don't remember if that includes a few non profit I'm sorry, part time, we have a few part time collaborative partners as well. So that's happened pretty quickly. And in a state where I don't know that many nonprofits in Vermont are tripling their staff at the moment. And so it's not that we did anything better or more right, but we were able to pivot in spite of a high pressure federal environment. We did so without any state funding from Vermont. We highly relied on national support, And we spent significant time building that infrastructure. So again, we now in March 2026, we have this coordinated intake form. We have a weekly meeting to go through every submission that comes through that form. But we spent a lot of time in 2025 putting that together. And that's time that we, lawyers, spent building those structures instead of helping more clients doing the legal work. And still overall, I would count it as a success. And so, however, most nonprofits don't have that capacity. They don't have the ability for their staff to spend a lot of time building this infrastructure, building operations, and replacing all of the federal funding that was lost with mostly private funding, which our executive director spends a lot of time fundraising through private avenues and the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund, which is a time barred option. And so coordinated systems like Common Good Vermont, a way to provide some of these services across the sector in a way that VAP was able to sort of create and provide for ourselves. A lot of nonprofits in Vermont, again, they don't have the option that VAP did to raise a bunch of money really, really quickly, partly because it's a topical people people are ready to to donate to this type of cause right now. And so Common Good and their asks, they hope to be that place to provide that support for nonprofits across Vermont, when and if they lose their funding, when and if they have to pivot their staff. Specifically, the coordination and system efficiency that I've been talking about ultimately reduces the burden on our state government. A little bit more time. Again, some of the benefits of coordination, shared intake, like I mentioned, and legal services, but also across any of the areas that nonprofits provide in Vermont, clearer referrals and faster responses. Coordination reduces fragmentation and helps our system function really as a system, which saves time and resources across sectors, including, again, the burden on state governments. Common Good Vermont already provides compliance support, which is huge in Vermont, especially outside of the sort of like Burlington Chittenden County bubble. There are smaller nonprofits doing incredible work across the state. But as a member of a five zero one(three) we have compliance needs that we're still fighting to make sure that we are in compliance with all of that. And we are almost all attorneys. And so a smaller nonprofit in rural Vermont needs even more support for things like compliance for their nonprofit. And Comming to Vermont is prepared to provide that operational guidance, and again, creating that shared infrastructure. At VAP, we believe in Coming Good Vermont's model so strongly that we are trying to essentially do what they are doing just within the immigration legal services. So a few just quick takeaways. In Vermont specifically, coordination determines whether or not services actually reach the people that they're designed to reach and serve. Nonprofits in Vermont already carry essential public facing work. And that shows what's possible, but also the limits on what's possible without that really necessary infrastructure, which takes time and money. It's not fun or hot to build that infrastructure, but when it's in place, then the work can really, really begin. And coordination enables statewide equity as well for our Vermonters outside of just the cities and towns, not just regional strength. In closing, Vermont nonprofits are already doing the work. Coordination is what allows that incredible work to reach more people more efficiently and more equitably across the state. I

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: want to be conscious of time to hear from the other guests. So let's hold questions, see if we have time at the end. Thank you so much for that rundown.

[Leah Brenner]: Thank you.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Up next, got Jessie Bridges.

[Hannah Burnett]: Yes, ready for first time. So if

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Want to skip over? We can go down I to

[Hannah Burnett]: can fill in. Basically, if you

[Jesse Bridges]: want to pinch

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: it, go for it.

[Hannah Burnett]: I'll do my darnedest. Okay. Hi, all. Thank you so much for being here. I'm Hannah Burnett with United Way Northwest Vermont and Common Good Vermont. And we are here to express our gratitude for your incredible support of our state grants and our appropriations as things are going through. And we're looking forward to working with House Commerce on advancing some of those initiatives. As I'm assuming they had just spoke to, there's incredible power in the nonprofit sector, the work we are doing to be responsive to emergent needs and ensure that Vermonters are able to thrive. And so we are grateful to be a part of that work with you all and grateful for your support in expanding our efforts in supporting the sector. Jesse will be here in a few minutes if there are additional questions, but would love to introduce our partners at Dismiss House as well.

[Anna Rutland]: You mind if they'll steal this chair?

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: No, go ahead.

[Anna Rutland]: Thank you. How's everybody doing?

[Hannah Burnett]: Pretty good. Thank

[Anna Rutland]: you so much for that presentation, you kind of set the stage nicely and we can just talk about what we do.

[Francine Rai]: Good morning everyone, thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to be here today, so we feel very honored, so thank you. So, I'm Francine Rai from Dismiss, I'm the House Director in Winooski, and have my colleague.

[Anna Rutland]: I'm Anna Rutland, I'm the House Director on Beale Street in Burlington. So, we're going

[Francine Rai]: to just start with giving a little story about Dismus House, and Dismus has a mission statement to reconcile the formerly incarcerated people with the community and community with incarcerated people. We just like to restore their full citizenship with their right and their responsibility, and we really rely on the community, so we are a community based organisation, and we just get a lot of support from volunteers, so that's where we get all our meals. So, we have almost close to two eighty five hours of volunteers bringing close to 30,000 meals, you know, so, and the first house here in Vermont was opened in 1986, and they got the idea from Nashville, was 1974. So, 1974, that's when the first house opened, and one of the best things that we are very unique is we are kind of like a house Covid style, and that's why we have five nights a week dinner, because we care. One of the main ideas of this month is sharing meals around the table. That is a very moment for Dismuth.

[Anna Rutland]: I think most of you have heard this myth at some point. We have five houses across the state. First one started on Beale Street. The last one opened a woman's house in Rutland. We have two houses in Rutland, one in Hartford and two in Chittenden County. And as Francine was saying, most people know us for our family like congregate transitional housing. We also have, under the pressures of current housing crisis that whole state is experiencing, we needed to really find new ways of providing permanent affordable housing for our folks. As you can imagine, of our folks have really damaged credit histories. There's stigma, there's shame attached to it. There's always wonder if they are ready to be sort of renting on their own. So we started master leasing apartments on their behalf for a couple of years. So we extend our services for four years now, plus the follow-up services. If you were really to classify us in a style of soft supportive services, it would be generalist. So we kind of set and we do what Leah was talking about, we rely on the community support of the social service sector to kind of really provide wholesome wraparound services for folks that are very vulnerable. At the same time, there is that sort of judgment for people who have been incarcerated, and they have them harmed and damaged and burned many bridges. And so, they're also very young. We're talking about average age of 41 at this point, order of parents. I think somebody asked for this committee when relevant information, and I quickly looked at it yesterday, three to six percent are veterans. So we also have about eighty five percent come with substance use and co occurring disorders in pretty advanced stages and are managed for many years. You will also see about, for both of our houses, we have been sort of following the patterns of how many recidivism patterns, by the time they reach us, people have already gone back to incarceration about nine times at 41. So we are talking about very young people, then you're talking about job trainings, kind of providing services anew to a person who probably never had comprehensive growing up in young adulthood, they are starting at 41. So we really can do it by ourselves, and I think that's the beauty and model of Business of Vermont, is this is a grassroots community, this is a community problem, we'll fix it together, one step at a time. Yeah,

[Francine Rai]: another part that most of the people that we serve, maybe dismisses the first time that they know what the house looks like. So, majority of people that we serve, they are homeless, so they experience homeless. I remember I was interviewing somebody who was 32, when he was young he was in a '57 foster family, So, yes. So I don't know how that person can just go back in a normal life. Most people, they just kind of like, I know is just being outside. So you guys are forcing me to be in a house, but I'm not getting used to this. So it is big problem that the community has, and we can do that ourselves. We try our best, but we need, they say it takes a village to raise a child.

[Anna Rutland]: Fortunately were not affected, I'm cognizant of time, and I know Das is here, We were not fortunately affected by federal cuts, because business has always tried to stay grounded in the community with our fundraising. Our biggest contract is with the Department of Corrections, that's the only contract that we hold with the state. I do believe we have a small grant from buildings and grounds at this point for sprinkler system installation of deals. That's the joy of my days, to figure out how to put that in place. But I think what we have noticed is our partners and community that we could have relied on, from job training to medical to people are closing doors or minimizing staff, and unfortunately our folk are not first on the list to be served. Rarely you will hear that anybody has a preferential treatment for formerly incarcerated people. And we also are seeing quite a large or larger than national average of people with disabilities coming to us. And more and more are recognized once they are out of the incarceration. So we're talking about a very vulnerable population that at the same time is experiencing less services because of the cuts. Brought some stuff, I don't know if we'd give it to the clerk, but please come, you can actually scan it, sign yourself up in your community, come join us for dinner. It's great. It's quite awesome actually. It's a time when we all de escalate staff, volunteers and residents, and just kind of sit around the table and talk about the days, stuff. So thank you for this time, and thank

[Francine Rai]: you for your great work.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: You very Thank you Shedding more light on this for us. Jesse, we saved a couple minutes for you. Hey, Mike.

[Jesse Bridges]: JESSIE Commerce and econ development

[Jesse Bridges]: got me going. So

[Jesse Bridges]: good morning. Jesse Bridges. I'm the CEO of United Way of Northwest Vermont. Common Good Vermont is a program of ours, a successful merger in 2021. And I really wanted to come and thank this group for the work and the support that we've had with regards to government grants and contracting, But also just to highlight some of the places where we still have work to do. We've made some great progress working with the Secretary of Administration's office, hopefully getting some updates to Bulletin V, around making it clearer, the process by which nonprofits did things like indirect, making it clearer, what the timeline is for both, grant contracts, grants being received and reporting, streamlining a lot of that work. And I think it's one of those things where the conversations through the legislature have led to really productive conversations with the people that are doing the work. Because for every bill that comes out of the legislature that sends money out into the community, not only do nonprofits provide those services out in the community, but staff in the state, have to administer those grants. And so it does create work on both sides, and we were really respectful of that. We wanted to be fully understanding of that. Some places where we see this as continuing to be a barrier, and I think this is somewhat historical, that a lot of the time, nonprofits are seen as inexpensive way to get business done. Or because we are so mission focused and, we, tend to be like, yeah, we'll figure out a way to get whatever service it is provided. Example of that is Vermont two eleven, which has provided emergency services for the state many, many times, whether it be the flooding, the last couple of years, back to Irene, or the day to day issues and crisis we have around housing, inclement weather, and other issues. We currently don't have a contract, with the Emergency Management Department. We've been asking for one and putting on one for some time, yet we're still expected to produce work on a regular basis. And I can guarantee you that if there was a crisis tomorrow, the first number that we would be told to call as a community is Vermont 2 11. And so we really need to continue to move this forward to think about our nonprofits as key partners in the work, but respected and equal partners in that work, and not, think that we can rely on just the charity and goodwill of our communities or the employees that are doing that work, to get it done. And it's not just showing up in that emergency. We need time to do the planning. We need to invest in the infrastructure. And I think this committee knows very well that if we don't invest in infrastructure, whether it be within the government, our computer systems and other things, it's the same thing for nonprofits. If we don't invest infrastructure and the support for the people who do the work as much as we support the work itself, we are not going to be able to be there to answer that call when it does come through. So we want to continue to, say we're having productive there's productive work happening, productive conversations, but there's still these places where we're up against it and need to continue to make sure that we're working hard together, both legislature, the government, and the sector, to make sure that when people do pick up the phone, exit from corrections, and need a place to live, are in a position where they need legal supports, that the community is there for them. And the people that can provide that support for them are also well cared for.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Any questions from the committee for our guests? We do have a blinking red light that it's going be solid soon, so let's find our way to the floor shortly.