Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Hey. Good morning, everyone. It's nice to see you this morning, especially after the marathon afternoon we had yesterday. Actually, marathon day we had the whole day yesterday. So as representative Noyes said, only get a break today.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I didn't even explain to someone that Jared didn't even give us a break.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I did say you could get up and do whatever you needed to do. But the agency to kiddo services parade that we have, they were all very intent on wanting to be able to share their belief about how they are addressing the issue of homelessness. So we had the entire Agency of Human Services leadership team crew. So it was a long afternoon, but some good information. But here, it's Mental Health Advocacy Day, and are having a luncheon and an opportunity to connect with constituents over at the Supreme Court Building in the lobby area there. If you want to connect with folks at noontime, that's a great spot to do that. But in the meantime, we have a couple of witnesses this morning that are going to share some information about developmental disability services and mental health and the intersection. When people think of dual diagnosis or dual disability, oftentimes people think of substance use disorder and mental health challenges. And sometimes that can mean other things. So in the world of developmental disabilities and intellectual disabilities, it can sometimes mean developmental disabilities and mental health challenges for folks. I think one of the things that they're probably going to cover, but one of the things I think is important for people to understand as we sort of don't necessarily talk about it a lot, but people with developmental or intellectual disabilities can have any of the same other kinds of co occurring issues that any person can have. So they can have substance use disorder. They can have mental health challenges. They can have chronic illnesses. And not everybody thinks of that and understands that. So we are really, really happy to be able to have Delayna Norton and Beth Seitler here this morning. We're going to this is the first time we've been here this year, so we're going to do a brief runaround introduction. So Theresa Wood, welcome, from Waterbury, and I also serve Bolton Beale's floor

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: in Huntington. Anne Donahue from Northfield, also represent Berlin.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Good morning, I'm Daniel Noyes. I represent Wolf at Hyde Park, Johnson And Belvedere.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Brenda Steady, East Milton, Westford.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Doug Bishop from Colchester.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: My name is Zon Eastes from Guildford. I also represent Vernon.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Hi, Esme Cole, Hartford. Julie McGill from Bridgeport, and I also represent Middlebury, New Haven, and St. Birch.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Hi, I'm Rey Garofano, I live in Essex, and I also serve Essex Junction. I apologize, I need to step out in a few minutes, and I will watch the testimony after. I'm Marie And magician.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Magician. Yes, wizard. That's the word I was trying to figure out yesterday. And then right around here, welcome back.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: I'm Marie Lennon. I am a board member, board of directors member of CFAC. Welcome back. Let's see, I'm all the deviations from this. I'm Eric Shortz, the DS Director in Washington. Brian Patten, Associate Director of Project Development Services at Washington.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Nice to see you all again. So welcome. You want to introduce yourselves for the record, and the floor is yours.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: You have such a good introduction. I'm Beth Seitler. I'm the CEO of Washington County Mental Health Services. And I'm Delaney Norton. I'm the Executive Director of Champlain Community Services, and thank you for having us today. Just jump right into it? Absolutely. The

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: presentation is on your iPads as well.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: So, Chair Wood did a wonderful job, as usual, introducing this and taking some of the the thunder from what we're going to talk about this morning. So, we're here to talk about the intersection of mental health and developmental disabilities. I really appreciate you taking time for us to talk about this, because I think it's not always known how complex the people are who are served in development services. We're going to be talking to you about some data that we've collected from a survey that we do each year now, called the Crisis survey. And let me just get right into it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: If you can hold your questions to the end, that would be great, because I'm going to try to keep us on schedule today. That might be hard, but we have people with lived experience coming in at right around 09:30. So I want to make sure you're able to get all of your presentations.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: I don't think Yeah, I we should be pretty good for time. So just to kind of level set things a little bit for you, about half the people served in developmental disability services, forty five percent or so, have a co occurring mental illness. So if you think about our entire service system is about half developmental services and half mental health. So then if you think that other half of the developmental disabilities also need support in mental health, about seventy five percent of our entire service system has mental health needs. I think it's sometimes not always known. We used to have, I think, very articulate or firm boundaries between developmental services and mental health, for those of us who are working in designated agencies, Delaney used to, as well. There used to be very strict silos about how people got services, and now we're trying to make sure that we're incorporating people into the entire service system, into the entire work that we do. We think it's better full person care to make sure that we're doing that. You may have heard something about system reform in developmental services. Maybe someone's brought it up in here once or twice this year. What's interesting is that developmental services and mental health kind of took different tracks in what they did. Mostly this is around service coordination. So as we're looking at that integration, it's complicated by the fact that mental health is still having case management within the organizations, and developmental disabilities has, as you know, contracted that out. I think it's just also important to note that when we're serving people in developmental services, we're looking at the whole person. So the complexities that I'll be getting into in a little bit, making sure that we're taking into consideration everything that is about them. The crisis support survey was conceived in 2018, I think. And really, it was just a way, trying to come up with a way of demonstrating the complexity of the people who we serve. So we looked at, and there could have been any domains, but the five that we chose to look at year after year were co occurring mental health diagnoses, having the presence of a substance use disorder, complex health issues, which often become more complex as people live, a history of trauma and risk the experience of homelessness, risk over the experience of homelessness. I just want to go back to trauma for a minute. You may have heard some of the statistics around this. I was looking at this last night. Approximately ninety percent of people in developmental services currently, or just people with intellectual developmental disabilities, have experienced some form of sexual abuse in their life, which is just a staggering number. And for me, having worked in the field, that is an accurate representation. Ninety percent actually sounds low to me. More than fifty percent of the people have had at least 10 instances of some sort of sexual abuse. So, I mean, it's just an absolutely incredible fact that we deal with, and this trauma impacts the way people go through their lives. And when we look at all these domains, what we realize is this leads to people being in crisis. And so this why it was so important for us to look into this. I just want to mention also, looking at the slide, that when the survey came about, we were seeing increasing number of individuals who weren't getting their mental health support needs addressed, who had intellectual and developmental disabilities. And we realized the importance of starting to collect data so that we can start to tell that story. Beth mentioned that we had been very siloed. And in order to develop expertise and understanding of the mental health support needs for individuals who had intellectual and developmental disabilities, we had to start collecting information to tell this story. Things changing. It's frozen. Beautiful.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: The next screening is the twenty twenty five survey data and the definition of crisis.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Okay. I'm working on that. Great. I

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: was going say maybe you lost internet connection, but sometimes it happens.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: And for a second? Yeah, so maybe you can keep talking a lot. So for the definition of the survey data, the definition that we used for crisis was a person experiencing or anticipated to experience psychological, behavioral and or emotional dysregulation that would result in acute life disruptions within the next forty five days. There it is. It just wants us to go through this one by one.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Have an app. Do you want to use wine?

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: I won't.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: No, won't go up on the screen.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: We can follow along. Okay, so

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: the slide that I'm looking at, here we go, number of people receiving developmental services through HCBS. Well, here we are.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well, actually, leave it in this mode. That way, maybe. Then we can

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: see Okay. This is, in looking in the last three years, basically what you can see is close to fifty percent, as I was saying at the beginning, close to fifty percent of the people that we serve have co occurring mental health diagnoses. Again, look at the trauma history. So the crisis support survey that we do is really a point in time survey. So it's just, we look at October every year, all of our case managers and service coordinators consider who they have on their caseload, and then look at these five domains and say, Okay, does the person that I'm thinking about have health issues? Do they have history of substance abuse? Are there other co occurring health problems happening, what's their trauma history, and then has there been a risk of homelessness? I think the other important piece about this slide when we do talk about looking at the trauma history and noticing that that has not decreased. There's many other areas that we are seeing slow decreases in are actually going back to when we originally started the survey work, which was pre pandemic. When I look at the history of our system, it absolutely makes sense because Beth just mentioned the number of individuals that have experienced some form of trauma. Many of the individuals who are coming into our system, oftentimes we are the only support they have. And when you understand the history that they have come from, it has oftentimes been very difficult. And that has been something that was never looked at previously. When we had closed the Brandon Training School and even those initial supports that were put in place, our shared living programs oftentimes started from people leaving that training school and moving in with individuals who had provided care to them at the training school. When we look at the individuals coming into our system today who are some of the highest level needs that we are supporting, they have actually been in a system that many times did not have the right type of support for them growing up. And that is why I think we continue to see this increased level of trauma. Now, was in looking at the sort of point in time, these are the people who are actually in crisis at one time or another. And think about fifteen percent of the people in services right now in some form of crisis. And we'll talk a little bit about what the supports we have available for them. But it's a lot of people in critical need today. And here, I do want to say, let's not get distracted by the fact that we are starting to see some decreases in these numbers, there is a story behind that decrease in numbers. I will say that the story is not necessarily that we as a service system have all of a sudden received robust resources to be able to address the crisis needs of individuals who are experiencing a crisis need with an intellectual and developmental disability. And so our numbers significantly increased during the period of the pandemic, which absolutely makes sense. And we have been scrambling ever since to be able to at least get our heads above water. That doesn't mean that we have been developing the adequate types of supports that are needed to support somebody with an intellectual and developmental disability who is having a mental health crisis. So, apologies, our slides are just a little bit shuffled here. So I can introduce this. So one of the things that we noticed, I've worked in the field of developmental services for the last thirty years, and sometimes I find myself saying this is not the same system that I started working in years ago. And so people ask me, what is it that's changed? Are people more complicated? Why are we seeing a higher it seems like we're seeing higher acuity of people in our services. And I think there's reasons for why it looks like this, and there are reasons for why that's actually true. So this is sort of beginning the introduction of why we're experiencing this. Part of that is because there's been a change in the entrance criteria for how people come into services. We have these evaluations and there are narrowing doors for what is acceptable, what the assessed needs are of people coming in, and it's simply higher acuity. Yeah, absolutely. This idea of higher acuity. So I think understanding this too, we are talking exclusively about people who are receiving home and community based services, which we know in the state of Vermont is actually a very small number of people who have an intellectual and developmental disability. So these numbers and the data that we're collecting is really even just a snapshot of the individuals in our state have an intellectual and developmental disability. So the numbers are actually much higher when you look at the data that we've collected. So something that's really important for us to understand is that a mental health crisis for an individual who has an intellectual and developmental disability oftentimes does not look like a typical mental health crisis. So if I am a mental health clinician and I was trained to screen someone who has a mental health crisis to determine whether or not they're going to meet criteria for hospitalization, which we oftentimes think of maybe that gateway to maybe treatment, it is not going to be the same type of training that is necessary to assess somebody who's having a mental health crisis if I'm an individual with an intellectual and developmental disability. This is an area in Vermont that we had, at one point in time, invested resources in. We recognized, after closing the training school, that there were individuals in Vermont who needed higher levels of care and stabilization. And that is how we looked at starting our crisis program here in the state of Vermont. As you all are probably aware and have heard, that is a very limited resource that we have. So I believe that a lot of the reason that we're seeing this higher acuity that you're hearing about, some of the resources that were built into our system of care for people with IBD has actually continued to diminish. We have expertise at the state that no longer exists and continues to get worn away. So partnering with us, EPAs and SSAs, around developing these programs to support people in their communities so they're not ending up in a higher level of care and with professionals who don't have the expertise in being able to treat that level of care. So when we're thinking about caring for people to get complex needs in the Vermont system, I do believe that this is an area that we have to look at where are the resources that are put into our mental health system. Vermont started to make strides direction when we started to look at integration. And I think many of us in the designated agency system and in specialized service agencies quickly realized that our mental health programs were not really equipped to be able to provide the support that we needed when an individual with an intellectual or developmental disability went into crisis. Our emergency rooms are not equipped. And so oftentimes things are misdiagnosed or misinterpreted, and those individuals either end up in a higher level of care that is not appropriate or back with the organization to be able to put a program together for that individual. So mentioned earlier, when we talk about our resources, so as Chair Wood had mentioned, that when we think about an individual with an intellectual and developmental disability, we oftentimes don't think about somebody who is also suffering from something like substance use disorder or another mental health condition. And today, we know that's just not true. Many of us who are in the provider network have worked very closely with these individuals and have worked closely with our mental health partners, our other community partners like law enforcement, to ensure that we are providing some levels of education so that we're able to address the issues that are coming up in our community when it comes to helping support a person who is in a mental health crisis, who may have an intellectual developmental disability. Our small resources here in the state of Vermont, we have the VCIN beds, very useful.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Not everybody understands Turbo Crisis Thank Intervention

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: you, thank you. So that is oftentimes when an individual who has an intellectual or developmental disability, this is a crisis stabilization throwaway out that was started in the state of Vermont many years ago. It has three, I believe they're able to support three individuals. What has happened over the years because we have not been able to invest in this resource in the way that it had initially started, is that we are not able to actually move people through our crisis supports because the need has increased. And the data somewhat tells this story. I think part of our challenge too, when we look at what we experienced pre pandemic with people just not having the level of expertise that's needed within their own organizations, being able to grow clinicians and support programs for people who understood how do I screen, how do I treat an individual who has an intellectual and developmental disability who is having a mental health crisis. Then we go into the pandemic and we don't have the resources for the number of people that had gone into crisis during that period of time. As we are coming out of that, I think that what is important for us as a system of care is to recognize that it takes the expertise and resources to build adequate supports and treatment in our community for individuals who are experiencing a mental health crisis. I think it's also difficult, even within larger agencies, get that cross pollination or cross support from have crisis teams that were pretty directly silent just to support people's mental health needs. And then I remember when I worked at Howard a long time ago, but I remember when there was a time when the crisis teams wouldn't support somebody who had an intellectual disability, which if they would say, We don't understand what these people need. So we're trying to balance that, obviously, and help people to understand the complexity of the people who we serve, but that they're just people, and they just have mental health needs. And maybe they have substance abuse and other health care concerns, but that they just need to be served as people. And that the approach around the tools that we're using may look a little bit different. And that's where I think the education comes into play.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'm just taking a look at the time and want to make sure that you have a chance to finish up. I would like to have a few minutes of quick questions. It's last one. Okay.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Much of what we have said here, I think here, the piece that I wanted the committee to hear and understand is that our system is under an immense amount of change. This is still much to be seen. There are many things that we are still going to be unfolding and need to be looking very closely at. Our crisis services have changed to a fee for service model, and it will be important that we are paying attention to make sure that in this new model, for these clinical and crisis support needs being paid for through a fee for service model, are going to address the needs of Vermonters with intellectual and developmental disabilities who have a mental health crisis.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Our committee's pretty well informed about the impact of payment reform in the developmental disability service system, and have worked with the appropriations committee on some placeholder language in the Budget Adjustment Act that is being considered that after the House votes on that bill will be considered in the Senate. And so we are continuing to work on that and aware of that despite challenges from the agency of human services.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: We very much appreciate that.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: One thing that's very important to understand is that these services need to actually be authorized. Although they're fee for service, it does not mean that you are able to just provide the service and be reimbursed because it is a fee for service model. And understanding the delays and all of that kind of stuff. We understand the layers of complexity that are unfolding now and some of the implications for providers and most importantly, for people receiving services and their families. So thank you very much. I think it was really helpful to hear about the mental health supports. And I was actually really happy to see the survey that y'all do at your own initiation to help people understand the needs and the complexity. And when you were, the slide where you were showing, sort of the trauma, SUD, mental health, homelessness, one person could have all of those things. And I think that not everybody understands the complexity of the needs. And I think you did a nice job helping us to see that. Questions from committee members. So this part of the budget is representative Noyes and representative Nielsen who is out sick today. So feel free to be in contact with him. I'm sure Amy Johnson is already doing that as well. And we appreciate you being here this morning and really helping to educate the committee about the intersection of mental health and developmental disabilities and how that plays out in your everyday work. So thank you so much.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Thank you. We really appreciate your time. Sorry about the technical problems.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, that's okay. We worked through it. It's all good. Had it. Did your work and we had it in advance. So it was all good. Committee, we are now moving back to age five ninety four, which is our work on homelessness, addressing homelessness. And as is, You can leave those chairs there because I'm not sure if people are going to sit together or not. So welcome, come on in. So we're going to hear from people with lived experience today about the impact of homelessness on their lives. And we appreciate your time and attention and best wishes. Take care.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: Thank you. And

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Lori, do we have anything on there? Okay. So I am going to ask that welcome the witnesses to the to the table today. Okay. I just wanna make sure I wanna make sure that we have everybody. I did see somebody pop up on and since it says Crystal, I'm going to presume that was Norman P. Kourteau.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: It's Norman

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Kourteau. Kourteau.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: I have a great Japanese today.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Excuse me, just a minute, please. I'll ask him how to spell his name.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Okay. And

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Tamarron Ernest?

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Ernest is coming here, technical problems, but he hopefully will come on Zoom. Okay. And if he doesn't, Tam is gonna read for him.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Okay. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Alright, so whoever wants to go first is welcome to go first. Reimbursement for expenses, like gas to get here.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Who would like to go first? Sorry, Norman online is.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, you have a seat. Norman, welcome.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Hello.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And Norman, can you spell your last name for us?

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: My last name spelled c r o t e a u.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: It was

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: as I'm sorry. You you kinda broke up. Could you say it again? I got the t e a u.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Yes. I can. C r O T E Okay, Proto.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: All right.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, Norman, thank you for being here this morning. And the committee is taking up age five ninety four, which is a bill that seeks to address the issue of providing supports and services for people who are homeless and sort of creating more of a system around that and actually putting in statute and in law what people in the state of Vermont should be able to expect from state government because that is pretty much nonexistent right now. So we appreciate you being here and appreciate you sharing your story with us. So the the floor is yours. We're going to do just brief introductions around the table so you know because it's hard when you're on the screen to know who's in the room. So my name is Theresa Wood. I'm from Waterbury, and I also serve Bolton, Buellsgore, Huntington.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Anne Donahue from Northfield, also serving Berlin.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Good morning, Dan Noyes. I represent Wilkett, Hyde Park, Johnson, and Belvedere.

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Hi. Good morning. Eric Maguire. I represent Rutland City.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Brenda Steady, Westford, East Wilken.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: Good morning. Doug Bishop from Colchester. Good morning. Zon Eastes from Guilford. I also serve Vernon.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Hi. Esme Cole of Hartford. Hey. I'm Jubilee McGill, and I'm from Bridgeport and also represent Middlebury, even home research. Happy to have you here.

[Laurie (Committee Assistant)]: Hi, over here in the corner, I'm Laurie, committee assistant. And Brenda will go right around.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Brenda Steadle and Executive Director of Animal Assist Vermont. Hi,

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: gentlemen, it's Tam. Tam Rojovic, Provident Home Assist Vermont. Brooke Hodge, Tamra's wife.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Hi, my name is Anne B. Carpenter, I was at some right for consulting.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And yes, go ahead again.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Good morning, my Marie name Lennon, I live in Middlebury and I'm the board of directors for Seaside. Good morning. I'm Anne B. Medeiros from the Acknowledge Services Division of DCF.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Great. And Norman, the floor is yours to share whatever information you would like to share with us about your experience your experiences.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Alright. Well, good morning, folks. For the record, I am Norman Crotto Junior. I'm currently living in Colchester, and I wanted to start by saying that I don't normally do public speaking, but I'm willing to go out on a limb because I feel information should be told despite that I really do this. So here I go. Well, currently, I'm sheltered at Motel six. My partner, she lives with complex health condition, chronic health conditions, and mobility issues. Now, I came homeless by no fault of my own. I was living in an apartment and my landlord decided that he was selling his properties and we were evicted for no cause. He actually sold multiple apartments that had multiple people in them and they were all good people. And I can't imagine how many people ended up homeless when he did that. How the his property is that he owned. And they also all got no cause evictions as well too. And only got them ended up homeless like us. In the beginning of my experience of homelessness, we were bounced around a lot. We have had nowhere to live for about four years. We've applied for every apartment that we can. We've stayed connected to services and we continue to keep our medical appointments with our providers. This past spring, we were denied medical vulnerability under the governor's executive order, and I don't know what we would have done if we didn't find any homelessness. Vermont. We're fully engaged with our COLE worker, and they referred us to EHBT, We were able to go for a hearing to remain sheltered under Governor's Executive Order, but this June Sorry. Having a little bit of a hard time.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Take your time.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Through the fair hearing to remain sheltered under the governor's executive order, but soon we found our eighty days for used under the governor's waiver. So we were exited to the streets. We had to go through another fair hearing and ultimately it was found that the law allowed for us to use the eighty days after July, but that took a long time and we were outside until November. During that time, my partner with her health conditions got much worse. She was she was not doing well when we were outside. Shoot. When we got when we first got back into hotel, we ended up having to go to the hospital because of her health conditions getting more hurt. It could have been prevented. I can't imagine how expensive her recovery was, but it all benefit if we would have just stayed sheltered. The fact of having to camp that way made it worse. We had to camp at places where we weren't allowed and we were forced to do that. When we got back inside, we had to get a reasonable accommodation to be sheltered at Motel six, where there are elevators and accessible room and people who treat you like you matter. The staff are attentive and supportive and we have services both with ending homelessness in CVOlio as well as our medical providers. We live in Taiwan, my disability which is just $1,200 That means that we can't even afford an apartment in this market without some kind of subsidy. And we have been turned down for subsidized apartments because of our no cause eviction. We are waiting on an appeal with my case for and see Leo Leo and EHVT will be attending. There's absolutely no way that we could have gone all through all this all along. Absolutely no way. We have never refused any services or turned them down, but every step of this has been complicated and hard to navigate and we feel like we are judged at every corner. Living in a GA and sorry, living in GA emergency housing is not luxury. It is not easy and the system is very hard to get into. We are using a dorm refrigerator, our whole lives are packed into one space, and we're constantly being told that we are going to have to go outside again. That is franchising. This program is keeping us alive. I feel like when I read articles or see the news, people in charge have no clue what it is like to be homeless. We are talked about with complete disregard. We know that we we know what we need to do. We are doing everything that we can do. We can end up so we can end up house. My partner also came here. She did not have the tools to even get into the program because we have to use phone phone line. We don't have the means of transportation. I also have disabilities myself. We needed support to get through this process and to understand the renewal and other processes. It's not a process

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: that's complicated. Norman? You're breaking up a little bit, Norman. I'm not sure if it's because you're not speaking into yes, Norman, this is Theresa. You're breaking up, so I'm not sure if you're speaking into the microphone or if you've got some papers rustling or something. It could just be your connection too. Sorry. My computer's kicked off.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: I think

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: he's trying to Can

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: you hear me?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We we heard it all except for, like, the last sentence or so.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: If you turn your and please

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Norman, I'm gonna suggest you turn your camera off. Can you turn your camera off? And that might might help your connection.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Yep. Alright. Can you guys hear me?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, yes. Now we can hear you.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Can you folks hear me?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Okay. What was the last thing that you heard?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We just need you to repeat the last sentence.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Well, was talking about how my fiance is deaf and we didn't really have the means of transportation. I also have disabilities myself. We needed support to be able to get through the process to communicate and understand the renewal and voucher process. It is not a simple process. It is complicated. Please do not make this more difficult. Whatever program you make, make sure that people experiencing homelessness do not end up living outside. It doesn't help us and it makes us sick. It would make anybody sick to be out there. We have made friends in the hotel. It is not unsafe and it is not isolating. What is isolating is when you are forced to live outside in the woods. When you are in the hotel, you do end up having a sense of community. I keep seeing in the news that is not understood. I want you all to know that we do have communities and we are not isolated here and we do have services we had been to. The state doesn't talk about the positive things that homeless communities does. When we pull together, if it wasn't for other homeless people helping us, we would have ended up freezing and starving. People who got us food and water and in the hotels, we help each other too. And I don't know any of us, anyone that I have met who's comfortable with being in the hotels. We're all trying to get housed. You don't have to add requirements to make us do that. Everyone wants that and we all do what we can do to make it happen. Please make sure you don't create a program that leaves us unsheltered, that adds hurdles or requirements, or that forces us to live on cots with many other people in the same room. That is not dignified, and please do not force us to live only with other people with complex needs just because we have disability, does not mean we should be isolated away from everyone else. I thank you so much for the chance to testify today. I hope that my story helped shape whatever you do next. Please let us be seen by our souls and not just by our challenges.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you very much, Norman. And we now have a copy on our website of your written testimony. So we'll be able to refer back to it. And it's in what we call the public record, so other people will be able to read your story. And I just want to say thank you very much for sharing the challenges of being a couple who are homeless and have been through a lot with regard to trying to secure housing and doing your best to do so in this really tight market. Do we have questions for this witness? Go ahead. Representative Noyes has a question.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Really appreciate you coming today and talking about your situation. Helps us really think about this issue. I was just wondering, are you on any waiting lists that you know of for either Downstreet or Cathedral Square or Vermont Housing? Have you I'm

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: on a waiting list for Cathedral Housing. I signed up for CHT, which unfortunately I got denied up from CHT. So now I'm filing an appeal for that with the support of both CBOEO Ending Homelessness. I've applied for a post apartments in Downtown Burlington. I've also applied for basically, I've applied for everything that we can.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Mhmm.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: It's just pretty much the waiting game and then to see what their outcome's gonna be, but I'm not gonna give up on trying to get some sort of housing because to be quite frankly honest, I'm just too stubborn.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: It

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: sounds like being stubborn is is a good attribute. So yeah. We don't accept sorry, comments or questions from the side, but thank you so much. Thank you, Norman. We appreciate you being here and you're welcome to stay on to listen to the other witnesses if you'd like to.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Okay. Thank you very much for this experience and the time that you took to listen to what I had to say.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And you did great.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Thank you. You.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Tamara? Am I pronouncing it right? Are. Tamara. Okay. Alright. Remember. First try. Alright. Nobody does that. Okay.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Welcome. Thank you.

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: Okay. Good morning. And for the record, I am Tamara Hodge. I now work at End Homelessness Vermont, doing our intake and communication with clients about day to day needs as it pertains to their emergency housing and once housed permanent housing as well. However, today I'm here as the person that was in the GA program and is now housed. I was here in this same seat with a lot of you two years ago, but so much has changed since then. I want to start by saying that I cannot support H594 as drafted, not based on my lived experience and not based on what I've seen in my work in this field, but I'll come back to that in a minute. First, let me tell you a little bit about me. I am a mother of three school age children, and I have children with complex needs. I'm from Vermont, born and raised. I moved from Vermont to South Carolina in May 2020 to find support in my recovery. Fast forward to 2023, when we ended up moving back to Vermont because my father's health was declining. Were supposed to have a house all set up here. We were very ready to get here. Two weeks after we got here though, our house wasn't ready and it turned out that the landlord had rented it to somebody else. We were left with nowhere to go and sitting in my little Toyota Camry with my three children and my wife, all of our stuff was packed around us and we had no clue what we were gonna do. Living with family was never a possibility for us, so we were left with nothing. At that point, I called 211 and ended up in the hotel program. They gave us only twenty eight days because they did not count either my sister-in-law or my mother's letter as constructive eviction. At the end of our twenty eight days, we were going to end up outside with three children and we were offered nothing but a tent in October. I was terrified.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Sorry, take your time.

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: I've lost my left lung April 2019. While I was in the hotel program, I had to use my nebulizer four times a day at some points. The stress and constant panic exacerbated things so badly for me. Many people here have not heard about my time in GA. So briefly, I will tell you is that my life was saved and my children's lives were made better by service providers who did in fact provide services while we were in the hotel. My caseworker Janice at Springfield Supported Housing referred me to End Homelessness Vermont, who began a process of helping us prove that this eviction counted for eighty four days under the then, under the then rules. EHVT even paid for us for three weeks. I believed at the time, I said this two years ago as well, that I couldn't be sure, but I thought that they might have paid for some of it out of their own pockets. Being on the inside now, I now know that that absolutely was the case. They took from themselves and their families to help me and mine. And I couldn't be more grateful. And now I know how hard it is to refrain from doing just that when you see so many people suffering. During that time every day, would go back to the hotel after picking up my kids from school in the afternoon to find that we had again been locked out of our room. I would have to wait, but somebody from EHVT would come and help and pay for our room one night at a time. Even after that decision was reversed, I had a gap in days. Again, End Homelessness Vermont and Springfield Supported Housing came in to help me and my family. It was that year that an eighty day cap was implemented. I made friends in the hotel who we watched end up outside. But just days before our eighty days ran out, I got so lucky and we found housing. That wasn't because there was a deadline or because there was extra pressure. That was because I got lucky. Many of my friends did end up outside. I didn't try harder than they did. I was just luckier. And I had providers who listened to what I said that I needed rather than telling me what I had to do to get there. I never once felt judged by the providers that I found like I often did by the state and still do at times by the news. Thank you so much. Some of the folks that my family and I met in the hotels have since died from being unsheltered. And so many of my clients now who I've formed connections with and built trust with have ended up the same way. Severing outside, freezing and begging for help that I can't give them and going unnoticed. Throughout my time in homelessness, I kept up with all of my paperwork. I applied for every apartment that I could find that we could afford, but I couldn't understand the systems due to my own disabilities. And my mental health was just spiraling out of control. I suffer from depression and severe anxiety disorder. And I have been in recovery for coming up on six years. I couldn't handle the pressure and I couldn't navigate the system on my own. Keeping up with requirements and changes was a full time job but I never quite understood it. I just needed the guidance through the process. What made it easier was having services that took some of the work off of me that put almost no additional pressure on me and asked me what I needed. That freed me to focus on the housing piece and relieved me of my constant guilt, shame and panic that I couldn't take care of my own family and we were going to end up outside. The thing is, now I've seen that same thing work over and over again throughout my work. We have a no reject policy and we meet people exactly where they are. Just as I was met by the same organization, exactly where I was without any judgment. It's not more requirements or more regulations that made my family stable. It was being relieved of them. It was having someone to listen and give me what I needed. It was being able to not be okay when I wasn't, without being told that I was failing or doing something wrong. It was never the endless hoops that I was forced to jump through and hitting wall after wall or feeling like I was drowning just to try to keep me and my kids inside. I was housed in October 2024. Since then, my kids have been able to regulate without fear, panic and stress. Since then, my breathing has gotten better and I no longer use my nebulizer four times a day. Contrary to me bawling my eyes out, since then my mental health has improved. And my wife and I have been able to have peace in our own space to grow as a family. I now have an amazing career with a lot of really great people where I help people exactly as I was helped. I build relationships and trust with people who are at their absolute lowest and just need someone to listen to them and their needs and to help guide them to the finish line. I never could have imagined getting to this place when I was experiencing homelessness myself. But just about one month after I was housed, I was offered a part time position with the Good Samaritan Haven and a part time position with End Homelessness Vermont. In July, after Good Sam's grant ended, I transitioned to full time at EHVT. Every day since I get to give exactly what I received when I was in the hotel, compassion and kindness, understanding, and peer led support to people living with disabilities at the intersection of homelessness. Homelessness is not the result of people doing something wrong. It's not about people who need to be fixed. It's about people who need and deserve a home. And when they find home, it's about making sure that they have whatever they need to be successful. When I was experiencing homelessness, it was hard to imagine that I could manage successfully. I was so traumatized by the whole experience as was my wife and children. But we could do it and we did. We just needed someone to believe in us and to hear us. Again, I cannot support H594 based because it is framed as an accountability bill and because it has a huge focus on sending people out of state if they have the connections to do so. When the percent of folks who come here from out of state is such a small number. I can't support the governor's housing proposal because it leaves so many people outside to suffer, get sick, develop disabilities, or even die. I've seen way too many people die. Since the state even reduced the allowed time in GA down to eighty days, those numbers just continue to grow. A proposal that does not keep people sheltered or that categorize people into deserving and undeserving is not something I could ever get behind. I see what that looks like every day and I saw firsthand long before I had this job. I have some specific elements that I definitely would like to see in a bill that can work. No reduction in eligibility. Everyone deserves to be sheltered. Fund case management in the hotels, street outreach, and specialized service coordinators for people with disabilities whom are independent so that they can operate and advocate in a way that best meets the needs of the households they serve. Create accountability for systems to meet disability needs as defined by the ADA and the Vermont law. This is not a definition that can or should be narrowed. The definition of disability is not negotiable. Do not reduce shelter without a one to one match of non congregate shelter beds. Give people access to what I had because it's what works. Put dignity of the people we serve at the center. Proper housing options such as tiny homes, single room occupancies, or mobile homes. Don't build shelter for 5,000 people, build homes, but keep people sheltered while they're built. Have an alternative rental subsidy that does not have the barriers of federal funding like evictions, criminal records and more. Just make it more accessible. Please just look to what has worked, what systems have gotten people into housing and follow those models. Both Pathways and End Homelessness Vermont are experts at keeping people in housing once they get there. All of the providers we work with know what they're doing. And when they don't, they reach out to someone who does. This system is full of effective, underfunded and overworked experts in this field. We need to look to what we already have. And I want to end by saying that my life is so much better since I found housing. My family is safe. My children are happy. They're healthy and they are all three. Housing happened because I was heard. Housing happened because I was lucky enough to find providers who saw and treated me and my family as human beings and not case numbers. Finally, want to say thank you for inviting me to testify today and I'm very grateful for the opportunity.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you, Tamara. Thank you. And realize that we all realize that sharing your story is sometimes re traumatizing for people. And so I just doubly appreciate you and everyone who is sharing their story doing that because I think we do recognize being homeless is trauma, trauma to you and your family. Having to share the story or being willing to share that story is really emotional.

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: I'm So sorry.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Please don't apologize. Don't apologize for sharing your emotion because that is is one of the reasons that we want to in this committee hear from people with lived experience so that we understand what the implications are for policies that we try to develop here. So it's very helpful. I'm just going to check with folks to see if there are questions. Yeah, go ahead, Representative Cole. Thank you

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: so much. So amazing. So articulate. Thank you for the way you shared your story. Think early on in your testimony you talked about your connection with Janice, so Wood Springfield? Yes. So, I'm curious about how that connection began, because it seemed like a bit of a ripple effect, you know, Janice led you to homelessness. You connected with Janice when you first entered the GA program, is

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: that right? Shortly after. Yeah, so when we entered, we went to the roadway in Rockingham and they had Springfield Supported Housing had sent Janice along with Susanna to the hotel twice a week. So that ended up going down to once a week at one point, but I would go every time I knew that they, you know, don't remember now, but I think it was like Thursdays at 10AM. And I would always make it a point to be over there to talk to her like, anything new that I can apply for? Anything else that you need from me? Have you heard of anything? And so I got that connection with her just from being placed at the right hotel. I just, again, got lucky. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And just a follow-up here. Go ahead, Cole, then represent Bishop and representative Steady. Thank you.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Great follow-up. With that, so how did you know about the meeting time and how folks would be there, what should be? Was it just like, especially for the

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: very first time. Mhmm. I happened to go in there because I was locked out of my room. So I went into the hotel lobby to try to get into my room, and they just happened to be there. And Janice introduced herself. And that's how that started. Okay.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: That's really helpful. Thank you. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Represent Bishop and then Steady.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Thank you. Thank you for being here and for sharing today. Can you perhaps share a bit about services to be accessed with in person conversations like you discussed with Janice?

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Mhmm.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: I imagine there's a lot of time spent on phone. Calling different agencies and the like. Can you share sort of what aspects, which approaches work for you and which ones?

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: I know that me personally, because of my anxiety, I have a really hard time with the phone calls. I can't do them by myself. Janice and Brenda came definitely in handy when it came to things like that. But for me, it was a lot better to be able to see folks in person, to be able to fully understand what I was looking at and what I needed to do. Meeting with Janice was like, she was kind of like my middle, my home base where I knew that I could see her in person and it wasn't over a phone. That definitely made a huge difference.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Yeah.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Did the hotel coordinator work with you to get you close to your jobs so you could get on the bus or drive your car from the hotel? I know when I did it, I made sure to get people close to their jobs.

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: Are they good about that? It was offered.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Are they still doing that?

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: Yeah. Yeah. And we, at Homelessness Vermont, we help to try to navigate people to the right areas and the right hotels via the bus schedule. That's like one of the first things that we look for. If folks have a job or, somebody has a lot of medical appointments and things that they have to get to, but there's nothing available close to their doctor's office or close to their job, then we always look at the bus schedules to make sure that we can get them to where they need to

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: be from there. Glad they helped you do that. Any other questions from committee members? Thank you so much, Jennifer. I appreciate it.

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: Oh, is he not coming? Okay,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: have Ernest. Okay, so thank you. And I would ask that both of those pieces of testimony, yours and Ernest, be forward to

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: if you got it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: just if you wouldn't mind for the record saying who you're speaking on behalf of.

[Tamara Hodge (End Homelessness Vermont; Witness)]: Okay. So this testimony is on behalf of Ernest Cormia. Good morning for the record, Ernest Cormia from Rutland. I wanna start by telling you a little bit about myself. I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when I was 22. At the time I was working for South Burlington Construction, I was on a jackhammer when it hit me. The doctor told me that as the years went on, my muscles would deteriorate and every year I got weaker and weaker. I had to stop working in my late twenties. And since then I have lived on disability and receive around $1,000 a month. I have four adult children, two of whom live in Rutland and two are out of state. They give me incredible help, but they do not have the resources to have me live with them or support me financially. So I live entirely on social security. That means that I cannot afford any available apartment without a subsidy of some kind. I became homeless after I was living with my son, Tyler and renting a room off of him for $400 Unfortunately, the landlord sold the house. My son had a hard time finding an apartment and definitely could not find one that my wheelchair could go into. It's too much for my son to be responsible for taking care of me because he has kids of his own and I did not put him on this earth to take care of me. I want all my children to have their own lives and not be held back by my disability. They already do so much for me. So he took that apartment and I did not have a place to go and ended up in the hotel program. I was in the program for about three years. I was sheltered at the Cortina. PATH helped me get there and I was there for the majority of the time that I was in the program. While there at first I had access to services and then the services were taken out of the hotels. Then in 2023, when the plan was created to let people remain sheltered, if they were sheltered by June 30, I was, but I relied on others to renew my voucher and no one did. So at first I was not included in that group. That was when I first found End Homelessness Vermont. They were there and knew that I had by no fault of my own, not been included in that group. My son came to me and said that Brenda Siegel can try to help you. She took over and was trying to help. I also had help from Vanessa at Brock. Then in October 2024, I had used my eighty days and was exited from the program. I was allowed at first to remain in Cortina without paying. End Homelessness of Vermont had arranged it with them and they figured out a way to keep me sheltered until December when I could get back into the program, but I had to be moved to Pine Tree. And then after the cold weather, the governor created an executive order, but I was denied under that order. They would not believe that I was disabled. I had to go through a fair hearing, though it was really Brenda going through the fair hearing for me because due to my disability and health, I was not able to do that on my own. Throughout all of this, the state kept referring me to VCCI nurses and others, but no one would listen to me about what I needed and I couldn't get to the door on my own. So when people tried to help, I kept saying that I have to wait for my kids to come. They took that as me refusing services. I got tired of it and eventually said, right now I'm overwhelmed and under a lot of pressure and I want to get these extra services after I am housed so that I feel stable. But I never stopped working with Vanessa and Shelby on finding apartments and filling out applications upon applications. I just wasn't moving up the list. Finally, in November, just before Thanksgiving, I got a place through the Rutland Housing Authority. I got the keys to my apartment and I'll never forget that day. I was able to throw a turkey in my own oven. I have not had that in, oh my God, years. Love cooking. Was just so happy and it did not fully hit me for a few days. The day after Thanksgiving, when I was sitting at the table with all my kids, it finally hit me that I was finally in my own apartment. I started crying and I was so happy. Now Shelby and EHVT are helping me connect more to medical providers, apply for choices for care. And I have been doing physical therapy two or three days since I have been housed. I needed to be housed first. I don't know if anyone has lived in a hotel or been homeless for so many years, but it is a lot of stress. I needed to find a stable place to go where I was not always worried I would be carried outside and left there. All the pressure to do more while I was living in this situation with no way to get out only made me more depressed. It was not what I needed. Now I'm home. Now it's great and I can do all the things that people wanted me to do. I never was refusing services. I just knew what was best for me and I needed people to listen to me. Brenda and Shelby listened. Vanessa from Brock listened. That's how I finally was housed. It was not my fault I was homeless and I needed support, not rules to get me where I am today. I am so happy that I'm home. Thank you all for the opportunity to testify today. If sharing my story helps one person, it is worth sharing.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you very much for sharing. We appreciate hearing from people who have gone through the gamut, you know, and been able to stick with it long enough so that they're able to, like Ernest, find housing and like yourself. And think one of the things I think it's important for us to hear is that, especially in this housing market, it takes a long time to find permanent housing. And the fact, one of the things that I'm struck by is that what Ernest said is before he could even think really about addressing all of his other medical needs, that he really needed to find a place to live. That was the thing that was uppermost in his mind, even though his condition was probably getting worse as a result of not having a place. But that was the first thing that was on his mind before he could even think about trying to engage with the healthcare system and physical therapy and all of that kind of So I think it's a wake up call for all of us to understand given the climate, and I'm just gonna say this out loud, don't need to ask you or Ernest about your personal finances, but I'm gonna make some assumptions that there might be some HUD subsidies involved and those aren't available now. So even as much as people try to find housing, if you're living on SSI or SSDI, if you have a disability, you can't afford to pay what essentially is more than 50% of your income. That's just for rent. Never mind food or never mind having transportation never mind medical care or any of that. Never mind anything else, essentially. Felt the need to say that out loud because I'm not sure that there's a real recognition about that. As we look to try to develop a system that can ebb and flow over time. So when we create laws, we don't want to have to go back and recreate them the next year or even the next three or four years. We want them to be able to be sustainable over time, things that we can look to that form the basis of humane policy for the state of Vermont. And it's not saying that they don't need to be amended from time to time, but I think it's important for us to recognize that the availability of things like housing vouchers is going to ebb and flow over time. And how do we account for that in whatever we create? Because that creates a longer length of time before people can find housing, even if it was available, it needs to be affordable. And I know I sound like a broken record, but we're not building affordable housing for people who live on disability. And I'm gonna continue to say it. Thank you very much. And please, folks who are in touch with Ernest, let him know that we heard his testimony and we appreciate it very much. And are very happy that he was able to find a place and have Thanksgiving dinner with his fans. That's awesome. Welcome. Nice to see you again. Just last year.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: So,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: committee members, we are going to take a break. We have security training at eleven, so our break is going to be a little bit longer than normal. But just before we go on break, I'm just interested in hearing folks' reactions to our testimony yesterday. We took a lot of, again, apologize for the grueling nature of the length of the testimony in the afternoon, but we heard from all departments in the agency of human services. We heard about the governor's housing plan that I'm gonna rename because nobody's going to convince me that shelter is housing, but it's temporary housing. I'm just Anybody have any reactions to yesterday?

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Sure. For me, it was good to have all the departments and the various groups talk about So hold on, let me grab the phone, organize my phone. I think it's progress from where we've been, right? So we're like six years into this crisis post pandemic, and as you've been here, and we've been asking for years, give us a plan, give us a plan, give us a plan. And it feels like I want to acknowledge the progress and the forward movement and some thinking about coordination of efforts and efficiencies and what can there's a lot of room for opportunities for change and improvement. I was a little disappointed, though, that there was it just feels like not enough for the level of crisis that we have right now. And I don't know what the answer is, but it just, to your point, temporary shelter is not housing, it feels like we need a lot more investment and coordination with other partners and other agencies that do develop housing and focus this very low income demographic that doesn't have a lot of other options. And I didn't see that piece of it. So hopefully that will come because there is some better coordination now.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well, think think the HCV, Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, you know, I think that they're interested in coming to share with us what they've been doing. Each And time I make that statement, it's not saying that we shouldn't be investing in that other housing. But I think that there's an expectation that because we've put so much money out there in housing, that why aren't people who are homeless being housed? Because we've not had concerted effort. So there's a few units in each building that's being developed that go to people who might come off coordinated entry. But it's not enough. It's not enough. So yeah,

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Brenda. Do I have to ask a question? No, this is just discussion. Okay, I was trying to think of how to put this in

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: No, my it's just discussion. I was interested in what people thought about it.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: After hearing yesterday and after reading it, this is my thoughts. I believe that h ninety four is on the right track to move away from the hotel motel and more congregate and more shelters. I do have an issue with the return to home and not being able and using it as a vacation because they can come back during cold weather and get the free hotel or whatever. Yeah. Can I just interject? I I think it's helpful.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: I I I'm not saying that can't ever be a problem, but I think it's helpful if those things, comments like that are always framed as, you know, in the rare circumstance or if, as opposed to anybody interpreting what you're saying is like this could be a routine problem. It could be, and I really feel that way.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Okay. It's in the Vermont Chronicle, if anybody wants to read about it. It's in the Vermont Chronicle, published yesterday, and it is a concern. We could put thousands into getting a whole family of seven to wherever and then they could come back December 1 and get free housing. That's the problem. The rest of the bill, we're pretty good with. That's my feeling. Thanks for sharing. Anybody else in terms

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: of Yeah, go ahead. You don't have to raise your hand. Just

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: meeting discussion time now.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: You have a swell friend. I I think there's a lot more for us to learn from a couple of the key players from the agency who we got an overview from yesterday. Then I feel like there were certain agency members who came and shared the work of their their departments, but it didn't necessarily have a a neat or clean tie in to what this initiative for the governor is. So I wasn't sure if we were supposed to draw from them our own conclusions. Well, we like what this department's doing. Let's do more of that. We like this. And they're leaving it to us for more of that creation. I'm I'm not quite sure. I think there's the numbers, as I expressed with some frustration, I guess, the other day, I'm still trying to get this to add up, and you asked the question, madam chair, yesterday of, okay. We've got 650. We've got 300. We got 300. Alright. Maybe we're getting to 2,000, but we have more than 2,000 homeless. So I'm not quite sure how we're gonna get this math to to work. And it seems like maybe a great deal of it is hinged upon the focus that needs to be on people who have no other just focusing on people who have no other options. And there seems to be an assumption that there's a lot of people who are homeless who have options they're not taking advantage of. Some are. And that's not clear to me that that's the case. So if they're relying on that to cutting in half the number of homeless, that doesn't seem like it's going

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: to get us there. Interesting. Yeah, I thought there were a lot of key components that were, know, to the limited degree they were presented, on the right track of what we want to do. And some of them, you know, may not be framed the rest of way, and I don't think it's framed well as an overall picture. But I think, for instance, saying, in terms of framing, saying those who have no other options, it sort of goes along in terms of my priority of not that we don't want to help anyone in that situation, but I've always felt very strongly that we should not, and they don't do this, we should not be looking at who's most vulnerable as the first priority. The first priority is the people who are actually on the street who, to me, they clearly have no option. If they had an option, they wouldn't be there. But those are the people that we have the strongest moral obligation to do something for and not at minus 10. That's kind of the base level, and then you want to do more than that. So to the extent that that was in part what they were trying to get at, I don't think it was well articulated, but I really support that piece, that framework. But I also think the biggest missing piece thus far in the bill, and likewise very much from the administration is you can't describe a two year transitional plan without saying what you're doing after two years.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Where are you headed?

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: What's the goal of where we're headed?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, I asked that question several times and I have blank looks.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, no, it's almost like nobody's thinking of that. I don't want to say you're not

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: thinking, I'm saying, but the bill is constructed now isn't thinking about that and the administration's presentation isn't thinking about that. And that's critical. And I want to be able to say to the public, to the taxpayer, to the people who need support that this is the goal and how close are we getting to meeting that goal? And how long will it take us to get to that goal?

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: And how are we identifying why we're doing these things? Whatever we decide and the goal may change over time. Right, but how does this support that goal? What we prioritize first. Community discussion. Just interrupt Anne and I.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: No, no. I've got that. It's like, you

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: know, saw that DOC had some RBA, like, how do we know that people are better off? What are they measuring? And I think that would be really helpful to know.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: They're the only ones who

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: talked And about it would be helpful for me to really see, like, what are the departments looking at and how can we have some accountability there around? How do we know people are better off? And back to your point of how do we know when we get there? Yeah. Where are we going? And it would be helpful like in a, I don't wanna say a one pager, but some sort of a way where you can see where each department is providing those supports and then what are they measuring and how are they knowing that the individuals they're serving are better off.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Yeah, and to piggyback off of that, Dan, and to piggyback off of the numbers and incongruency between who we're coming into contact with versus the numbers we know exist, in order to figure out where people are ending up, the end goal, like within DOC presentation, for example, we need to have a relationship with those people in the first place. I think that's something that came up yesterday, but also, know, that's why I asked this follow-up question in our former testimony, is how did you connect with that person in the first place? It was by Even if yesterday's presentation was all about continuity amongst each different agency, it's like whether state government is going to do the project of creating relationships, real relationships that are very human oriented and like, okay, we need to get to a different place together. Whether we target the state as being the person or the state is working with other partners to create that, it needs to be clear and we can't just say, Oh, they might do it, they might do it. We're putting out money to do that and that is what's going to result in change, having those relationships, but we're not even creating the relationships in the first place, except for a fraction, which when it works, it works. We really need to target that in statute.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Yeah, I'm curious, and I think I asked this question yesterday, I'm curious more about the vision of who's going to lead this. I think I framed it as, so where is the buck gonna stop? Is this going to be an AHS run sheltered, AHS staff, etcetera? I don't think that's the case. They're gonna look to community partners, And our community partners have been working hard but struggling to get us to our current number of six fifty shelter beds. So I'm having a hard time seeing how the rapid growth will occur. I'm a little afraid about the history of the state understandably looking to community partners to support goals of the state, but not always funding them.

[Norman Croteau Jr. (Witness, lived experience)]: Right.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: We've had to step in and give 2% increase last year for home community based care providers. Is this gonna be a system that's set up and then slowly starved back to our point of we need to see projecting out a bit further. And I wish we'd heard more about we heard a lot about some very powerful and impactful programs that exist within state government run by people who I think are trying to improve the lives of Vermonters. And we also talked about greater integration. So what has been preventing that greater integration to date that we're now gonna break that logjam to allow state government to be a more forceful and coordinated presence in someone's lives to turn the corner out of homelessness.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I was gonna say to that point, I think that not to pretend I'm Jenny Samuelson, but I think that she would say that they've started that work through this executive team approach and that sort of the parade we had of all of AHS yesterday, twice, was part of sort of breaking down those silos. I mean, they've met and they've identified this as a priority as a whole team. But I think that you're right because that's one step. That's just one step. And there's many steps to go before there is really that sort of integration. What we heard, I'll pick on Dale just because I remember the testimony. They talked about people who had already been found eligible for choices for care. They didn't talk about all of the people who we have heard about from our community partners, both the community action agencies, the shelters and homelessness Vermont, the other providers out there who have never had any outreach. It's just when I, my sort of overall impression was, yeah, we had a good sort of dog and pony show, but I did not connect. And I think I said this several times with folks that what we were hearing yesterday did not jive with what we had heard the day before from all the people who were on the ground doing the work.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: Yeah, so clearly the conversation, this statewide conversation has to be larger even than the government itself. It has to engage all these different agencies and who's doing that, who's actually gonna make all that happen so that we can, because all the many players have a part. So we can't legislate that to happen. We can advise it, but we can't legislate it to happen. So I think that's for me, this big huge RBA project has to come into bearing into play that many people have voice and many people have possibility and resources that we can put toward this thing. We're never gonna solve it because there are some people who want to be homeless. They choose that, we're never gonna solve it entirely, but we There

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: are people who choose to be outside.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: Right, choose to be outside, yeah, yeah. So maybe that's not homeless for them, but yeah.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: That's not the problem we're trying to address. No, know,

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: feel that and I'm not trying to use that as a cover,

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: but I mean, I think that,

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: I think, I guess I feel that I'd like to see real efforts or real measurable efforts at achieving certain parts of this. What are we gonna get done now in this amount of time? And then what are we doing next in this amount? Of time? Who's naming all of that and putting it in order?

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: I hope to piggyback on that as well. Thank you. I think that's so important. The partnership between our state and the agencies, whoever's

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: doing the

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: work, we gotta do together. And I wanted to highlight a specific anecdote from, it's more than an anecdote, it's a big picture issue, which come up time and time again, is this tension, this fight between some of the on the ground groups and the state in shelter. Because for example, this individual who provided testimony, had muscular dystrophy, was in a wheelchair, needed somebody to open the door for him, and he was even with the conditions of the exemptions for being eligible for GA, denied the disability factor. And it's like, what is it assuming? And so then more state resources are being funneled into the appeals. And that also just happened by chance. This person was displaced on the streets again, or during that process, we don't know what's going on. That person could have easily slipped their crack. So the more times we have like Norman says the same thing about his partner. Exactly, exactly. Every time we do that, it's like, you don't have a relationship with that person, that verification process, what is the verification process besides clearly there are fallacies in how that's taking place, and it seems like the goals of achieving shelter, because of these anecdotes that are not anecdotes, they're patterns.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: They're One

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: thing we had, I thought, done very elegantly in age 91

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: was to direct the resources to where the people are, closer to the individual and focus on those relationships, right? And I think this is taking us, like the plan that they have is taking us further from that, right? It's like putting the money at the state level and putting the focus on the accountability. And it just feels like the more layers you put in there, the harder it becomes for those relationships to form and for those people who are on the ground to be able to react and be nimble and be flexible. The other thing I'll mention, and those of you who've been with me on this committee for a long time, I am a huge fan and know the effectiveness of supportive housing, permanent supportive housing. And I was a little curious why, in their plan, they're not focusing on things that are going although they are proposing to expand family supportive housing, which is great. But Pathways Vermont is a very similar model as family supportive housing. It's the exact same thing, but not for families. And they have a success rate of 85% housing retention. Right now, they're only serving like two twenty people. Why not scale up something that works? Make it The

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: scaling of things. It's not where

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: we're taking the investment, because what I'm hearing, the hotel, that's state benefit. That's a state benefit. Put that aside, we're placing people into a state benefit, where they need placement into the unbelievable resources that are being operated on the ground to access that. To access, I have to follow the guidelines as laid out with Hutt, literally homeless to place people on in there. This bill in no way shapes and forms tells any agency how to continue their unbelievable operations. What we're saying is we're taking and stop investing into a structure that's not working. The hotel place, we can all agree with that. There's a state benefit. That's not where the placement should be. Let's expand and give greater access to the wonderful that were already being provided there. And that's what I'm seeing the investment go on to the state, you know, operating the Rutland emergency shelter. Sure, I stay in coordination with OER and so forth, but they certainly are not dictating me how I am going about that person centered service or approach to get people off the street and out of the hotel into a safe, stable environment with the ability to access that next step of stable housing. Just like we heard, that was unbelievable. You that system for what it was intended for. You got the break, you got the opportunity to like, okay, let me maximize, catch my breath, get music. And then you took that next step and worked with the non profit, worked with all the other unbelievable resources to get yourself in that nice stable position that you are. You used it for what it was intended for. What we're attempting to do not keep pushing it into that thing and then expand on. And with that comes commitments, obligations, responsibilities,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Engagement. Engagement. The one thing that I'm gonna challenge you a little bit on, Eric, is we've heard from multiple witnesses, not just the witnesses here today. I'm thinking back to last year as well, that there's this sort of misnomer that is put out there by the agency of human services that people get no services when they're in the hotel. They kind of want to speak out of both sides of their mouth because then they want to come and tell us, oh, but we go into the hotels and we do outreach in the hotels and we do so

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: because that's not the case.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'm just saying that we've heard personal stories saying people got that connection while they were in the hotel. And it might've been by chance, like the question that you asked down in Southeast. But I don't think it's the case for everybody, obviously. But I think that we need to sort of divest ourselves of the notion that people don't get anything in the hotels. It is based upon voluntary willingness to engage or knowing resources or having the chance meeting of somebody in the lobby, which is not okay either.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Because it's a state benefit. It's a

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: state benefit. Yeah,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: the same thing. It's not a program. It's been a financial benefit. And there hasn't been an expectation that people engage.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: But can I just say another really important thing people are getting at the hotels is

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: a roof over their head,

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: and that stability of knowing that night, or for how, you know, and that, you know, we heard, like, having a place and not, like, the trauma that causes, mean, most of us know this, but I don't think we discount like that piece of it? It is a safe place to sleep at night.

[Beth Seitler (CEO, Washington County Mental Health Services)]: Yeah. There

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: was talk yesterday and I'm not saying it's all in right, everything's in order, but there was talk about viewing the hotels and motels as more like shelter like rather than thinking of it just as of early-

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We had that in age 91

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: as well. I mean, I think there's, you know, it's a it's a resource. It's a and not a yeah. I mean, there are ways to think of it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, for me, that is, I think, a proposal that warrants, you know, inclusion in whatever we end up with. Because honestly, I don't want to be in a position of necessarily building up 1,000 shelter beds where in a system we hope that as housing becomes more available that we don't need a thousand shelter beds. So using real estate that exists already is something that I think we do need to look at. Since Monica's here, I'm going to add, I'm not going to ask you for an opinion on anything, don't worry. But I I would like to have in in the section that we saw yesterday, it might have it might have been on Kristen and Kristen and Sandy. Her name was I could think it was her last name, and I don't mind probably by her last name. But a comparison of twenty six and twenty seven governors recommend 26 actual approved and governors recommend. I would like to have 25, twenty six and twenty seven. And I'm only interested in DCF. I don't want to include DOC. That was a weird thing to stick in there. Like, well, should we stick in choices for care transitional housing, or mental health transitional housing? It was weird. So I just want the DCF, the GA and the OEO and break out by one time and base. And I know that some of that is moving, for '25, '26 and '27. Okay, thank you. Okay, folks, we're going to take a break now. So anybody watching on YouTube, the committee will be back at eleven, but the room will not be open. We're having a security briefing and we will not be broadcasting on YouTube.