Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: Okay.

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: Here you go.

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: I don't know why. I just can't wait. Ready to go. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to House Human Services. We are going to pick up on testimony for H594. This afternoon, we're gonna be hearing from the ACLU about

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: this proposal

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: and really looking overall at the response to Vermont's homelessness situation. So welcome. And you've been in

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: the room. We've already done all

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: the introductions. We have a visiting guest from Appropriations, who I'm sure you're familiar with. So the floor is yours, Alex.

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: Thank you, Chair Wood. And for the record, my name is Alex Gramblis. I'm a policy advocate with the ACLU, the American Civil Rights of Vermont. I am joined today with my colleague, one of our senior staff attorneys, Jessica Radborg, who's joining on Zoom. I will be walking through the presentation, and she'll be available to help answer any committee questions. And how would you like to deal with questions as they come up, or would you like to

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: get through your presentation first? Sure.

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: I would say it would be great to hold some till the end, although if there's something that is really gonna be helpful in a timely manner for folks to be able to kind of follow along through the presentation, feel free to jump in. We're flexible. I'll encourage people to write down your questions. Okay, great. Thank you. So a little bit about the ACLU. We are the statewide affiliate of the National ACLU, and we defend advanced civil liberties for all people across a broad range of constitutionally protected rights and freedoms. We do this in the courts, we do this in the state house, we do organizing in the community, and we engage in strategic communications. Not every ACLU affiliate covers issues related to homelessness and housing. We do because it is such a massive issue for our state. And when we're looking at the pathways to which someone can be involved in the criminal legal system, homelessness is a primary pathway in Vermont and really opens the door for people's rights to be placed in jeopardy. So this is the agenda of what we're hoping to share with you today. I understand that the committee does not want an overview of our homelessness crisis. Understood. We do want to re up the root cause that we believe is underlying our homelessness crisis. As we're engaging in solutions, we think it's imperative that we're all on the same page about the problem that we are solving. So we're gonna talk a little bit about our current system, a little bit about GA and its importance as a program, and then we're going to offer some feedback around H594 and the Governor's Housing Initiative and offer some recommendations for your consideration. So this is not a new phrase to you all. Homelessness is a housing problem and Vermont has a housing problem. I'm sure you all have seen this book reference, both in testimony that we provided last year and through others. And I really want to reiterate that the research shows that housing supply and affordability explains homelessness trends. Rates of mental health challenges, disabilities, substance use disorder, even poverty or service availability does not make a difference on a systemic level. It's really that housing piece. And Vermont does not have enough rental housing. The number of rental housing units has decreased over the last seven years, while our population has increased. Our household sizes have decreased, which means more rentals are needed, even if the population were to remain stable. And rental vacancy rates have plummeted, going from 4.5% to 2.1% in just a few years. So are those active links? They are active links. Okay. Yes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Because when statements like that are made, like housing, rental housing units have decreased between those,

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: of course, we want to know what is the evidence of that. Sure, absolutely. And we'll be digging into this data in the next few slides. But I also just want to say if an overview of some of our data collection and the methodology is helpful, we're happy to provide that to the committee as well. A further breakdown would be helpful. Because as you know, we receive conflicting testimony at times, and understanding where the origins are is helpful. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. So to paint this picture a little bit, and this is using American Community Survey data, the median rental price in Vermont has increased by over 34% just from 2019 to 2024, the most recent year of data collection. And so I want to dig into this a little bit more on this slide. This is a slide that shows the number of rental units by rental range, and there's two lines on this graph that I really want us to hone in on, and that is the yellow line and the black line. The yellow line are units priced between $500 to $9.99, and the black line are units less than $500 And that's really what we're referring to when we're talking about affordable housing. In 2010, 60% of Vermont's rental homes were in this $500 to $99 range. And as you can see, that number began to plummet starting at around 2020. If we were to reexamine this data looking at just the private market, so taking out those publicly subsidized units, the lack of affordable housing to the lowest income Vermonters is even more dramatic. Looking at that yellow graph, we can see that the number of rental units priced in this range would make up 14% of rentals as compared to 60% in 2010, and there are zero rentals below $500 in the private market. So what does this mean? The housing math does not work for the lowest income households searching for an apartment in the private market. For example, a single person with a disability receiving SSI or a family of four receiving reach up benefits both have comparable monthly incomes of around $1,000 a month. If these folks were to use 50% of their income towards rent, which is unsustainable by all metrics, there would be zero rentals available to them in the private market. So we can't look to the private market to solve this issue. We want to keep digging into this here because I know that this is a question that you have raised, We're Chair looking at the number of publicly subsidized rental homes. So these are project based vouchers or vouchers that are not project based, and comparing that to the need, so the number of extremely low income ranger households, of which we have around 20,000 in our state. That leaves a gap of about 5,700 units. This number is remarkably similar to the number of people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in our state. And we know that this is going to worsen with the loss of federal funding sources. So we're gonna skip over some of this. You all have seen this data about the number of people experiencing homelessness. What I wanna show you is this chart right here. And this takes those two buckets of information and compares it to each other. Here you can see the availability of affordable rents from 2019 to 2024, compared to the number of people experiencing homelessness. As that availability of affordable rental units, rental units priced below $1,000 has dramatically decreased, Our homelessness numbers have dramatically increased. They are inversely proportional to each other. And I'm sure you might be looking at this and wondering, well, correlation does not equate to causation. This takes that research that is available through the book that I referenced at the beginning of our testimony, really all of the preliminary research we have available on this topic, and shows you what it looks like in a Vermont specific context. This is the root cause of our homelessness crisis. There are not enough shelter beds available to meet the level of need in our community. I know that this is not news to you all, but it is striking when you see it in a visual form. GA has protected the lives of Vermonters experiencing homelessness for decades. Not gonna just

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Can I have you go back one slide? Sure. So we understand it's not in shelter beds. That's not news to us. But what I'm not clear about is whether you believe there should be more or what amount do you think there should be?

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: Great. That was a wonderful question. And this is part of our recommendations at the end of our presentation. If it's okay, I'd love to wait. Because also want to find an answer to that question to be able to guide next steps. We'll be digging into that. We're gonna answer it. Thank you.

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: And I won't get

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: into this, but this is really just to say that GAA, this is a program that has been around since the '60s. It has provided shelter service since the '60s. It is foundational to Vermont and is reflective of Vermonters' long standing values of community care and compassion for those most vulnerable. Any efforts to defund would be a significant deviation from who we are as a state. And so there's a lot of words on this screen. I just want to say that if we're looking at the number of people experiencing homelessness using the most conservative estimates, looking at the number of people in GA, looking at our community shelter capacity, right now, we are already leaving over 1,300 people out of our system, and that's even without further cuts. Eliminating or reducing GIA absent an equal number of alternative beds means more unsheltered people on our streets. This means more people's lives are held at risk, more cities and towns struggling to help people living in tents, vehicles, and sleeping outside. So who gets hurt? There are two populations that I really want to highlight here, and the first are people with disabilities. More than fifty percent of Vermonters experiencing homelessness have one or more disabilities. And I really think that we are going to look back on this issue and recognize that our response to homelessness will be one of the largest disability rights issues of our time. About one in five unhoused people in Vermont are children, and this includes the nearly 800 children 12 experiencing homelessness in our state. That's who get hurt when we make cuts to this program. And so we're going

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: to go into a little bit

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: of feedback about this bill, and I just want to say from the get go, we oppose this bill as currently drafted. We don't support the language. However, we are incredibly grateful of the sponsors of this bill for taking up this issue when it is such a tough political moment, and that takes a lot of courage. And so you'll see some feedback that we have about why we may not support certain elements of it, but I wanted to be clear that we're coming to this table in a collaborative spirit and are appreciative of you raising this issue again this year. The ACLU of Vermont supports investing in a permanently affordable housing, shelter and services with equitable access and dignity for all. We all want to see our communities thrive. And in order for this to happen, we need to make these investments. We do not have adequate community based shelter capacity, and the GA emergency housing program provides a critical backstop. We do not believe that the bill is currently written and achieves these goals. We do not align with the bill's purpose. We believe that the fundamental purpose must be to improve the lives of the launchers. We have some structural considerations for how this bill is written. It appears to make ESV the administrator of all shelters that would be engaged in this program. And I just want to say that, taking a step back, some of the rhetoric that we've been hearing about GA and its shortcomings as a program has been a lack of access to services in that setting. Instead of bringing services into GA, we are proposing to take our community system and apply GA regulations to it, and we believe that that is the wrong direction for us to be moving towards. Further, the bill is currently written proposes a lack of equitable access to services. And I'll get into this in just a moment. But I think fundamentally, any plan that would reduce our motel room utilization from 1,100 to 400 rooms in just one fiscal year is not a plan that we can get behind. Digging into the equity considerations here, we recognize that this bill proposes two tiers of services. And I just want to highlight that the tier that provides more access to services, that provides more time available to shelter, is designed in this to be for people who can physically or cognitively comply with program expectations that is simply not equitable. We do not support Section IV's eligibility prioritization. We believe that this is vague and opens up the door to arbitrary results. We also believe that it deprioritizes some really key categories of folks that are currently included in GA eligibility. And this includes the proposed eligibility categories to be cut include disaster survivors, so people fleeing flooding, for example households evicted for no cause, so no fault of their own and people rendered homeless following a family member's death. So this could be the loss of a spouse who may have served as a primary breadwinner. We are not seeing any logical reason to remove these folks from accessing services. And I think overall, I just want to acknowledge that a lot of the conversations around eligibility have driven absurd policy discussions. Are pregnant Vermonters more vulnerable than Vermonters above the age of 65? These are not questions that we need to answer. All people deserve access We to believe that the limits posed on motel and hotel room usage is a significant, significant loss to our system. It will not work without an alternative plan. It would dramatically reduce the number of rooms available without any safe or reasonable alternative in place. The funding for motels appears to be reduced by 80%. And I know that this piece here is something that has been acknowledged by you, Chair Wood, by Ledge Council, and we wanna reiterate again, just because we did see this in the Governor's Housing Initiative yesterday. Requiring applicants to provide proof of residency in Vermont, like a utility bill when they have no home, is unreasonable and is likely unlawful. The best proof that we have that a person resides here is their physical existence in the state and the declaration of their intent to stay. Anything else is unreasonably burdensome. Requiring a lease, utility bill, or license creates a de facto durational residency requirement, which as we've heard, is illegal, is unconstitutional, and violates the constitutional right to travel. We also want to acknowledge some of the language in this bill, and I want to say I don't believe that it was the intent of those who put this bill forward or of anyone in this committee, but the bill is currently written, and I would loop in the Governor's Housing Initiative to this, too. Includes nativist and stigmatizing language. The Return Home Program funds removing people experiencing homelessness or perceived to be at risk of becoming a public charge from Vermont, but we all have a right to be here. H594's focus on fraud prevention is unwarranted and redundant. We're not seeing where there is evidence of this happening, and I also just want to say that there already exists regulations and penalties for those who provide fraudulent information for all DCF programs. We don't need to duplicate this. In taking another moment here, I think that some of what we've been hearing from the administration has particularly troubling around this entire conversation. These concepts of the deserving poor. We are hearing some very troubling language from the department that is really relying on anecdotal evidence of people coming from other states. So We ask

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: for data. We don't get any data. Exactly. And

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: we have anecdotal information to share as well. I was at the motel locations over the summer when the governor's executive order sheltering the most medically vulnerable people in our GA system, when that order expired. And I went to a few of the motel locations around the state. What I saw was unimaginable. The people that I spoke to were wonderful and kind people experiencing the hardest moment of their lives. I spoke to people in wheelchairs, people on oxygen machines. I talked to one person who had months left to live due to a fatal chronic health condition. And it is unacceptable. We did not see AHS staff on the ground. No one had been outreached to, to coordinate, even around transportation, about where they could go next. And when we look back at this period of time and we see that we were using less than half of our hotel room capacity during this period of time, that we were hearing the department come back and talk about program savings in the 5,000,000 to $10,000,000 range, and yet we could not find a way to keep people sheltered when their lives were at imminent risk. This is unacceptable for our state. I want to dig into the Governor's Housing Initiative a little bit here. And what we have here is an overview of the eligibility categories over the program fiscal year of 2025, and talk about the percentages that we're seeing. Sixty two percent of people over the program last year had a disability of some kind. If we're looking at some of these proposed investments, it's not clear that this is reflecting our current population needs. We're seeing almost $8,000,000 for family specific sheltering. That's great. We support that. We want those investments to be made. But we're seeing a one time funding request of 1,200,000 for people with substance use disorder. It's also not clear whether these initiatives would reflect an immediate access to shelter, a one to one match, or the proposed loss of GA rooms. We have a lot of questions about this overall. And I think all of this is particularly important when considering the proposed cuts to GA, which is a program that largely supports people with disabilities. A proposed 60% decrease beginning in July. Again, unsustainable. So we are wondering what data is informing this configuration. This is the proposed makeup of how this funding would be used. And when we look at this, the questions that we are asking ourselves are: Does this plan address root causes of our homelessness crisis? Does this work towards shared goals of eliminating unsheltered homelessness? And does this keep Vermonters safe in the interim? And our answer, as far as we can tell, is no. So we have recommendations. And I want to say we have the same questions that you have, Chair Wood. We believe that we need this information to be able to drive any kind of a targeted reinvestment plan. We believe that we need a strategic plan that is done by an independent, depoliticized, research based outside entity. The last report of this nature was in 2017 with the Road to End Homelessness Report, and homelessness has changed significantly since this time. Housing development plans do not address the needs of the lowest income earners in our state. They have not put forward anything that would solve this problem. And there's a particular need to conduct an analysis to guide state response to the loss of federal funding sources regardless. Further, we believe that shelter development plans must include a statewide report of geographic and population equity needs. This is not to knock ourselves. Our shelter providers are doing a lot with a little, but we know that the system is underfunded. We know that there are gaps that we need to fill. We recommend that the state contract out with a project manager, a nationally recognized organization with expertise in homelessness, and an accompanying task force, including Vermonters with lived and professional experience in homelessness, to conduct a study, a report, and an action plan. We need to get more granular about these investments if this is the direction we're moving towards. How many SROs do we need? How many vouchers do we need? We do not have those answers right now, and we think it would be remiss for the state to begin a transition without having this information available. In the interim, we want to recognize housing is health. Shelter protects lives. Absent of an alternative in permanent affordable housing, emergency events, whether in motels, shelters, or innovative alternatives, cannot be decreased. Under Title II of the ADA and Vermont's Public Accommodations Act, Vermont's homelessness response system must meet the needs of people with disabilities in integrated, community based settings. Rights matter. Civil liberties matter. People experiencing homelessness deserve to have due process, a right to privacy, and to personal autonomy, the right that we expect for all Vermonters. And I want to end with this quote, which I think is timely for right now. The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. That is being tested right now. Thank you. Thank you,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Alex. Okay, let's open it up for questions. Go ahead, Representative Donahue. Sure, I

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: just wanted to check on slide on page 32 on my browser, develop solutions that will work.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Wide number. Yeah.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Think it might have been here. It's just before

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: the end.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: There, there we go. Okay. Earlier on, you talked about it not being equitable or legitimate to have as defined in as not defined, but as labeled in the current bill, tier one and tier two with different requirement or specifically with different levels of support, degrees of support, that it should be equitable support. And if you take away the question of number of days, I think what you referred to in the second to last bullet would be low barrier and service enriched options, I think, is what is kind of the concept of kind of high barrier when you look at, you know, it's about all those

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: enriched services. And you're making a recommendation about low barrier and service enriched. Doesn't that contradict saying it's inequitable to have more services at one time than the other? Sure, so I think that's something to recognize is that we already have specialized service providers across our community. What we are saying is that it is up to the state to make sure that there are options for folks that do not fit into those categories. We need to be building out shelter and emergency shelter plans that serve everyone, that provide access to the same services that are offered in the community on a voluntary basis. That's what we mean by that. Does that clarify? A little bit. I think the way

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: you phrased it on that earlier slide isn't really what you're talking about now.

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: Yeah. Sure, and I think that this, for us, really goes back to this question of accountability and the accountability of our government. It's not up to the private, nonprofits or penal sponsor state to fill in every single gap that exists within our system. It's the state's responsibility to take care of those who are left out of the equation. So I think that what we're looking for is something that's more aligned with the GA program, if that is a helpful clarification for you. Well, no, what I'm referencing specifically is

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: that the comments seem to suggest that a low barrier shelter that didn't have the same service enrichment would be inequitable, that you have to have the same service reports. And this implies more like vaguely the suggestion in the bill, which is that there are fewer services in low barrier because there isn't an expectation for some of the service ready folks.

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: Sure, and

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: I think maybe where the confusion is around the availability versus the requirement. We believe that services should be voluntarily available to all and not required as a condition to receive shelter.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: In the tier set up, there's certain requirements in certain tiers to participate in certain activities. Yes. No, I understand. Disagree

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: with that premise, particularly when we're talking about a transition of GA into a system like that. Go ahead, Aren't we trying to move away from GA housing because it hasn't worked?

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: Isn't that the question to the witness?

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: Isn't that the idea of it? I think that we disagree that it hasn't worked. It has kept people alive that would otherwise People be outside right alive, but And hasn't moved in. Well, think this goes back to this question.

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: I want

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: to see people succeed and they're not succeeding. But that's just my opinion. I did this work for two years. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Want to see people succeed as well. We also believe that we need to be duly making investments into permanent affordable housing and long term solutions for individuals. Course. I do want to highlight that some of the pushback against the GA program, again, goes back to this access to services piece. Why are we not trying to improve the program? I think that that's where we're coming from as an organization. The ICH five ninety four as a step forward for the people, the homeless community, huge step forward. I only don't agree with the return to home. That's the only thing. The rest of it, I see a huge step forward for the homeless population. And I actually know a lot of them personally. It's not a problem. I'm happy that you have a personal connection. Thank you. Also reject the return home program aspect of this bill. Any proposal to cut our spending on shelter, immediate access to shelter by 80, we do not believe that will help the people experiencing homelessness. And COTS has been successful since the sixties, I think. Just that I should have

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: that out there. I'm not sure I've asked questions. Sorry, I apologize. Thank you. That was part of the dialogue. Okay, Now, Representative Bishop?

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: You talk about scaling back or the GA program, trying to enhance the services that are available. I think you also made reference to the view that the state has responsibilities. But the state often, through many programs in many different areas, looks to community partners to actually execute on a vision for the state. Where do you see responsibilities resting in trying to enhance this delivery of service? Absolutely, thank you. So I just want to say that, and this really goes back to this individual versus systemic question.

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: We believe that homelessness is not the result of a personal moral failing of the people who are impacted. We believe that it is a systemic failing of the state to develop adequate, affordable housing and shelter solutions. AHS has this in their mission. This is part of the organizations that are currently serving folks right now. It is absolutely their responsibility to make sure that no one is left out in the cold, because again, this is a matter of life or death for the people who are impacted. We unequivocally believe that it is the state's responsibility to ensure that people do not die outside. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Representative Cole? Alex, would I Oh,

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: hi, Jessica. Do you wanna hop in? I'm sorry.

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: I'd love to be able to jump in.

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: I will. Please feel free.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Just just a moment for committee members. So we had a change in schedule, so we have a bit more time for this testimony. So I just didn't want the witness to feel rushed. So we're gonna be hearing the testimony that was scheduled for, where am I, 01:40? We're gonna be hearing that tomorrow instead. So just wanted people to know that. Go ahead, Rep. Semple.

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: Oh, sure. Or if Jessica wants to Oh, I didn't

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Jessica, do you have a comment or response? Okay, great. Thank you. We don't We we thank you for speaking up because you're a tiny little thing. We don't necessarily see you unless you're Honestly, I think you could, if you wouldn't mind, take the presentation down because we have it on our computers and we can see it and people have now seen it. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Now we can see you in bigger form. Thank

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: you for having me today. Something I just wanted to lift up is that if we look back to you, why do we even have Vermont? What did Vermont say when we became an independent republic in 1777? That we think that the fundamental job of our government is to keep us safe. And so looking back to the beginning of Vermont, in our first set of laws in 1779, there was already a plan for how are we gonna take care of people in poverty. And at that time, it was delegating it out to local communities. That all changed in 1967. But right now, even though again, since 1967, we have relied on community based shelters to support that obligation. Ultimately, the obligation does rest with the state to protect our lives, liberties, and and property. And when it comes to protecting lives, highlighting what Alex mentioned, community based shelters that keep people safe from the outside, they are protecting lives even if some of the guests that they have don't obtain housing within some particular length of time, because the housing isn't there right now. For GA, similarly, it protects people's lives. It prevents them from dying outside. And I noticed in one of the slides that was presented yesterday on metrics and key performance indicators of any system that we're proposing, one of the things that was included was the number of deaths in the program or in a shelter. But what wasn't included is how many people are dying outside right now? How many people are getting sick outside? And when I talk to my neighbors who are unsheltered, they're telling me a lot about how sick they are, how much they're going in and out of the hospital, how much risk they're experiencing on a daily basis. And so I think whether it's shelters or the GA program or some other alternative, having that bed, having a roof over someone's head makes a huge difference. And whatever it is that we're investing in, and of course, we want there to be more permanent affordable housing and rental assistance to keep people in private market housing and figuring out what is the right measure of shelters in different communities and what sort of services need to be in those shelters. What about people who need just a little bit of assistance with activities of daily living? Which is the kind of thing that we don't expect a case manager in a shelter to do for some What are those needs? We want those things to happen, but it takes time to build all of that, which is why we thought having a strategic plan developed over time with all the stakeholders in the room was critically important. And for now, making sure that the number of beds to keep people sheltered as opposed to outside has to be maintained. We cannot have more people out in the cold. And whether it's summer or winter, people are always at risk when they're unsheltered.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Thanks, Jessica.

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: Roxanne? Thank you. I think as this proposal is alluding to, so let's say we retain we don't cut the GA program by 80% in funding in this budget season. How, I think around the table we want to agree, well, number one, we need to keep people alive, bottom line, safety first. And if they're not alive, they can't engage in services. That's an issue to consider. With that, how do you proceed? Say we keep the funding, how do foresee us better integrating access instead of just, per chance, finding somebody who could have more information about what's possible in the lobby? How do

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: we better integrate? Sure, sure. I think that some of the questions around service delivery are probably best asked to our providers about how to best bring services into a setting like GA. I'm not sure if that entirely answers your question, but I think that really our point is that we don't have the information about how this transition should look, getting really granular about the very specific investments that we should be making for our North Star of eliminating unsheltered homelessness, which is why we are recommending that an independent research based entity produce that information to be able to guide policy next steps.

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: And I'll just add in, there are innovative things that are happening right now. Some of the shelter providers have a lot of success with master leasing apartments and housing people there. And so I think there are a lot of different ideas. One of the key things that we keep raising is it does take time to do that. And so we're concerned about decreasing the number of spaces available right now for the large number of people who are experiencing homelessness. And I think tapping into the knowledge that's out there around how do we prevent more people from becoming homeless? These are all things that are really worthwhile, and that's why having that strategic plan makes so much sense.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: I would, if we could, like to spend a little bit of time, Alex, I'm going to ask you now to actually bring your slides back up. Sure. If we could spend a little bit more time really understanding the housing slides at the beginning of your presentation. I think, as my committee has heard me say numerous times, think that understanding why we're in the situation that we are in is important. And we heard from people with lived experience this morning, and I think that oftentimes they sort of bear the brunt of being blamed somehow for being homeless. And the pictures that you're showing here and the link, so I would encourage people to go to the links, it's US census data, paints a very different picture. And recognizing that many of the people, not all, but many of the people that we're talking about are living on a thousand dollars a month or less. And I think it's a really important point that you made a slide or two in that even if they spent 50% of their income, which is not sustainable, they don't really have access to anything in the rental market. There's zero, which is I actually appreciate the time you took to put this together because it's illustrating with real data what it is that we've been saying in this committee for a while, that we do not have sufficient attention being placed with the billion dollars that we spent in state and federal money on housing, on the kind of units that people and the number of units that people need who are living on that SSI or SSDI or some other small military pension or something that they might have. And I think in particular, even though we have said it before, but I think that it's important for people to speak about the vacancy rates dropping you know, from 4.5% to 2.1%. And this this is simple economics. If you have ever gone through an economics class that when the supply is low, the rents go up. When the demand is up and the supply is low, the cost for those, whatever it is, this happens to be apartments or units, goes through the roof. And it's just, I guess I'm expressing frustration. I don't really have a question, which I'm always asking people if they have a question. I'm expressing frustration because I feel like we've and we're going to have Vermont Housing and Conservation Board in here because I'm sure they're listening whenever I say this. I just feel like we have not focused sufficient resources out of that billion dollars that we put out in the market on this very specific low income. And it includes people with disabilities. It includes people with mental health challenges. It includes just working folks who are living on minimum wage. And driving me nuts because I feel like we are just beating my head against the wall on that. And I know how to change that, to be honest. So Representative Donahue and then Representative McGill. I was just going

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: to briefly add to I mean, yesterday, we saw information that there was not an opportunity to get into that level of detail with the presentations. But one of the things was building a large number of units specific for that, at 40,000 a unit. And it's like, okay, what are going to build with 40,000 a unit? I just I mean, that's like

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: You could, actually. Well There's opportunities. Well I mean, that's the that's the VHIP that they're talking about. And that's

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Oh, you mean just the the renovation? That's the renovation. Okay. Alright. That wasn't at all clear on the slide. Yeah. It sound like it was new new you you know, new. Anyway. Newly available,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: I guess. Newly available, right. But as we've seen, the prioritization of people who are homeless has taken a dive at the Department of Housing and Community Development. Representative McGill and then, Representative Maguire, did you have

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: your hand up sort of?

[Rep. Jubilee McGill]: Yeah. I do have a question.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Okay. Think

[Rep. Jubilee McGill]: that's just building on that. I mean, I'm a very well known liberal arts college adjacent to my in my community. A lot of the professors live in my community. Lots of local practices. College professors and doctors who they're trying to bring in are struggling to find rentals right now. And I also just want to point out, even affordable housing, even the little bit we do build, you still need a voucher It's on top of affordable

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: housing,

[Rep. Jubilee McGill]: but the rent is still not affordable if you're living on Reach Up or SSI or SSDI or a little pension. On top of that, you need that trifecta of luck. And I was very lucky in my life. I hit that jackpot. And that is how I got out of homelessness is I got a voucher and an affordable housing unit all at the same time. And that has to happen at the same time to have a prayer. So it's not even just building affordable housing. We need to be talking about the vouchers because we're going to start seeing fewer and fewer of those, which is just going to make all of

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: this blow up even more than what we're facing right now. Yeah. Thank you so much, representative, for sharing your personal experience with this. It's incredibly helpful. Just want to say that we share in your frustrations overall around this topic and agree with the assessment that was just shared. Thank you. Representative Maguire.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: Yeah, thank you so much. This is kinda on it, but you can kinda be a little bit surprised what I'm gonna ask. Do you think that some of the regulatory barriers, I. E. Act two fifty, the Clean Water Act, some of these other regulatory things that are in place are a barrier to getting affordable units on up. And I'm gonna use the example of what was just put into place in West Rutland. 35 units at a cost of roughly $13,000,000 Roughly 4,000,000 of that was pulling the regulatory permits, which then took this time to get those permits into place, then would expedite it and shut up the construction costs another bit. So I get my question is this. Do you think some of those regulations are hindering our ability to get affordable units up?

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: I do not think that we need to give up environmental preservation in order to solve this crisis. I do, however, want to say that I think that what we're really looking at is nibdeism. And this is really important when we're talking about the words on the paper, when we're talking about that stigmatizing language, nativism. What we're seeing is that what's said in this building, what's written into laws here, makes its way into the larger community narrative. And that creates material barriers to building shelter, affordable housing. And so I would say it's a different set of regulations that really what we're looking at, and I, to be totally frank, am not very plugged into environmental policy, so I don't believe that I am the correct person to answer that question. I will invite Jessica to jump in as well, if you have anything else that you would like to share. Thank you for the question.

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: I am also very mindful of knowing what I don't know enough about, which is Act two fifty, so I will not make a comment on that. But what I would like to share is that when I've talked to my neighbors who are outside, people have different needs and different interests, what they're looking for right now. And so, a 100%, we wanna develop more permanently affordable housing. We do wanna be mindful of what we used to make it deeply affordable to the lowest of the low income people was federal vouchers. And so we're gonna need to figure out how are we gonna manage that as a as a state when we know that the federal vouchers are not proceeding at the rate that they had in the past. But also for some folks, they would rather live in a property with five other people who are recovering from substance use disorder. They would rather live in a tiny home because they know that they need to have their own four walls that doesn't have anybody else attached to them. So there are different models that I do think are worth exploring. Part of our goal in let's take some time and have a strategic plan is really hearing from the people who are experiencing homelessness about what's gonna work for you. Maybe it's not always the types of units that and I think we need to do a 100% keep building the types of units that we have been, but I think there are other models that are worth exploring too.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: And just working on one last follow-up. Can you can you share with me what the general assistance program is? What are the program mechanisms within general assistance? Because from my understanding, the general assistance is a benefit. It's an emergency housing benefit. And I keep hearing, like, the general assistance program. General assistance is actually mechanisms are involved.

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: Yeah, general assistance is actually many things, it goes beyond emergency housing. So the idea of general assistance, going back to when we started that program in 1967, was to make sure that people's basic needs were met, one of which did include shelter, but it also includes things like if a person who's really low income dies doesn't have the money to their family doesn't have the money to pay for a burial, includes things like burial expenses. There's a small cash grant. When I say small, oh my goodness, it's $28 a week, I believe, as a maximum amount the So, really tiny cash benefit that I think a lot of people aren't necessarily aware of. When I saw testimony on the BAA from the team at DCF, they mentioned that the reason why that was a down, the cash assistance that comes as GA is because it is the case that a lot of people don't know that that's a program that exists. It's a very small amount of money, but it is a program that exists. But the one that has taken the forefront over recent years is definitely the general assistance emergency housing program. And in the past that had lived in rules pursuant to the statute that authorizes provision of shelter through the general assistance program. And more recently has taken hold in appropriations bills that set forth what the eligibility criteria are.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: Well, it's it's defined statute as the general housing, emergency housing benefit. We can't attach anything to that benefit. What would they receive the benefit, because you've been bringing up the question of how can we transfer elements and services into a benefit? You can't. And we're one of the only few states that are de factoing this situation mainly to a benefit program. Whereas we're looking to not the facto to a setting that we all agree is not for permanent and to utilize and invest into all these strategies that we're talking about. Yes, permanent and temporary supportive housing, that is one of the most effective models that are out there to move people out of homelessness. What I'm getting at is, I don't believe it's appropriate that we continue to de facto and invest into a benefit because we can't put any type of mechanisms on it that to an extent helps an individual on out. All GA programs were established in context of that safety net, that moment of like, okay, like when we heard a testimony from somebody that utilize that opportunity, utilize the services, and then we're able to move out of that. If we continue to just de facto to a benefit, we're going to remain in a field of circumstances that we are now. And that's where I was going with the, you know, that understanding is a difference between the benefit and these other program elements. And as representative Donahue was mentioning, in regards to, let's give some equitable access to people that need that level of access. We all come in different shapes and sizes, as you both have mentioned. And if I'm struggling with this, I wanna be able to access that level of supportive care that directly helps with my needs to reduce my risk. And I believe that's where we're going with this. But I wanted to get your thoughts one on the GA benefit and two, the second thing.

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: And I would thank you

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: so much representative for raising the point. I'd love for you to respond to this, Jessica and I just want to say that, you know, there is a lot of discretion of how this benefit can be operated and it is not, you know, unlawful for there to be a service access component alongside access to shelter. Jessica, did you wanna jump in as well?

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: Sure. So let's think about a program like Reach Up, which is defined in statute. So Reach Up is a cash assistance program for the lowest income families, but it also includes a large number of service components, some flexibilities to be able to help things like with things like transportation, to be able to give them the tools that they need to become more economically self sufficient and reach their family goals. And so there isn't any reason why GA in particular, as a benefit program, doesn't have more of those types of, here are all the different services and options that are available to you that come along with the benefit, the small cash benefit that we talked about, and also that emergency housing benefit. And right now, the system that we have is that through the Office of Economic Opportunity, in addition to providing operating funds for emergency shelters, there is also funding that goes for services. The services, for the most part, lot of the services are directed at people who are in the shelters to make sure that they're able to meet with the case manager within three days, etcetera. And there's less funding that goes to services to people who are in the GA motels and also very limited funds for services for the people who are outside. So for instance, I've heard from some folks that are outside and from providers that there is a huge backlog in even getting people on the coordinated entry list, which is the list to get you started down the path of being able to get housing. So there's a real delay in even being able to do intakes for people to get on that when people are outside specifically. It's a service imbalance. It doesn't have to be that way.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: I agree. I agree.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Thank you, Representative Garofano.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony. I'm really intrigued by the idea, your proposal of a need for a strategic plan. We did something similar for child care. We had a big study by a national firm that gave us the parameters what is needed. I'm curious, do you know of an organization that does that? And have any states done that and been able to move the needle in the obviously, homelessness, we all know, is a national crisis in this country right now?

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: Thank you so much for the question. And I would say that I do not have that off the top of my head, but I would love to come back to you with that information. And Jessica, I am sure that you have thoughts I would love to offer the opportunity for you to speak to.

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: So the 2017 Roadmap to End Homelessness used a national organization with expertise on this particular issue, which was the Corporation for Supportive Housing. It also incorporated a task force with input, and we've put together recommendations on what this would look like. And so in addition to having some sort of consultant that's gonna bring everything together at the local level and make sure we're getting input from all the right people, we foresee that there would be an RFP to seek out the services of a national organization that could be corporation for supportive housing or similar place, but they definitely do exist. And we have done this before.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Go ahead, representative. Do you

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: still have the data? Did you do it on this? You said you've done it before? You do it

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: on Vermont has done it

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: before through the Roadmap to End Homelessness from 2017, but I think we all agree, Vermont has changed a

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: lot since

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: 2017. Didn't tell anyone who said before, if it was like the last couple of years, we could like, you'd see the data.

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: Yeah. I think everyone agrees that there have been so many changes.

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: Some of the

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: things that we thought would happen, even just before the pandemic, didn't pan out that way. So for instance, when I was looking at the housing needs assessment from prior years, it was anticipated that the population would decrease in certain areas and oh my goodness, it has not. When we did housing needs assessments in the past, I don't think it was anticipated that we would end up with around 12,000 units being converted to short term rental housing. And I do just wanna note on that, that even though a lot of those short term rentals are in vacation areas, when I used to work at Vermont Legal Aid, I had clients who lived in some of those areas. And so they had to have somewhere else to go. And so I do think we've seen a lot of shuffling of populations, but the population has gone up in ways that I don't think people anticipated. The number of rental properties going down has had a huge impact, but someone needs to put it all together. So we did the best that we could, looking at the ACS community survey data, the housing needs assessments, the directory of affordable rental housing, but having someone with national expertise bring all of this together and figure out real solutions is so important for setting a real path forward.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: I wanna follow-up just for a moment on what you said, Jessica, that the GA, and I always put program in quotes because agreed with representative Maguire, it's not program, it's an economic benefit the way it was set up and the way it's been run since 1967, gosh sakes.

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: I

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: guess it bothers me to think that we can't just, that we, there's ways to modify it as it exists. And I also, I guess, take issue with the fact that know, HHS in general is fond of saying that there are no services there. And yet we hear from community provider after community provider, designated agency, community action agencies, home health agencies, area agencies on aging, that they are all frequent. They have clients. They have people who they see in these hotels. And so I think that we need to probably take some of our own advice and not generalize about any of this, honestly. And I would caution AHS not to generalize either. So while it's not a requirement to receive it, and again, I think we're focusing on trying to focus on housing first principles that make it voluntary, that I get concerned when we just kind of generalize and say there aren't any services out in the hotels when, factually, we have seen that that's not true.

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: So, yeah. If I may, I love that you mentioned that because what I see people doing out in the community is amazing with almost no resources, people who don't get paid a lot of money. They are doing absolutely the best that they can with what they have. Look at a program like you mentioned Housing First, Pathways. So they provide the services that goes with rental assistance for that permanent supportive housing. And they would, I think if you, I'll leave it for them to speak for them, but I suspect they would love to be able to do more and to provide those kinds of services to a lot more households, but you need funding to be able to do that. Yeah. I mean,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: when you look at the map that we saw yesterday, Rutland County stands out as a place where they're providing services all the way around Rutland County with the addition of Bennington. And we know that there's a large population of people who are currently experiencing homelessness in Rutland County. And so, yeah, I think that we're gonna have to take a critical look at the proposal that we have before us and say, is that the best use of the resources? And is that gonna get us the, I hate this term, I'm going use it, biggest bang for the buck. Are we going to impact the most number of lives as possible by investing in this? So I'll put it out there. I don't think two specialized shelters for people with health issues is a particularly good idea myself. I think there are other ways that we can meet some of those needs. So yeah, other questions, and then we're gonna take a

[Rep. Jubilee McGill]: is my comment. I'm just wondering if maybe HHSB could help us with this. I worked for a shelter at the start of the pandemic. When we moved, everything was in hotels. Our shelters didn't have people. We

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: had one, and

[Rep. Jubilee McGill]: that was an unusual case. But I'm just wondering if we could have some talk about that. We had tons of services at that point in the shelter. We were operating out of the hotels. We had FEMA grants to attend to folks. So I'm just wondering, to show, it is possible to bring services into the hotels and to do it on a very large scale. So I don't know if that might be helpful for folks to see that not only can it be done, is it happening? It happened at a very large I mean, in Addison County, we had over 300 people in our hotels. And if

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: you know our numbers, that's very tiny. We were the

[Rep. Jubilee McGill]: place where lots of people were getting sent. And we had a wonderful, robust, holistic system set up to ensure everyone was getting what they needed. So it can be done.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: It can be done. I have to comment that we don't have all the federal

[Rep. Jubilee McGill]: your point, how can we

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: scale How can we it?

[Rep. Jubilee McGill]: What can we do for now? Are there other options we're not considering that might be a better use of our money than what we're currently doing?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: Yeah. And I think representative Maguire hasn't used the term today, but

[Rep. Jubilee McGill]: Highly amenable. Exactly. Can

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: I make one last comment in regards to

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: that? Yeah.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: The hotel, if there was a level, and I'm gonna use this word, regional equitable usage of hotels throughout the state, then I could support it. I'm also coming back from the perspective of a representative in Rutland City, in which Rutland City has two fifty utilizations between 14 out of our 17 hotels are being utilized for GA, within a two mile radius, two fifty rooms. You kind of see where I'm coming from in regards to the amount of pressure that was put on our wonderful services there. If we're going to start and I'm still, we need to draw down on the utilization of the hotels. But we also got to get that utilization regionally, equitably to where it's not putting a strain on one community the way that it has, Rutland City. And I and I believe everybody can agree with that.

[Jessica Radborg (ACLU of Vermont, Senior Staff Attorney)]: And that was one of our concerns when we looked at H594, because a lot of it was about, oh, is there capacity? Is there a service provider in the community that's willing to do There shouldn't be some push because maybe in Chittenden County, are lot more services that suddenly everybody's flooding there, that everybody's flooding to Rutland. We need to have an equitable response. One thing, because I know we're gonna break soon, that I just wanna highlight too. The AHS housing policy, we can't do things in different ways, and we already do things in a variety of different ways. So years ago, the Vermont rental subsidy was a program that was started up because we don't want people becoming homeless, and when they are experiencing homelessness, we want them to be able to get housing as quickly as possible. And so rather than pay $2,400 a month for a motel, it makes a lot more sense to have someone get housed. We do have a problem, but we don't have enough housing right now. But if we can, for instance, whether it's master leasing apartments or if someone can get an apartment on their own, give them a rental subsidy. Or if they're about to get evicted because they're on Reach Up and they just can't afford their rent, giving them a rental subsidy and helping them with their back rent, that makes so much more sense. Absolutely. In the BAA, why are we pulling money back from Reach Up when there are over 100 Reach Up households in GA motels? It just doesn't make sense when we know the Vermont rental subsidy program works. It's just stuck right now. I'm not able to issue vouchers to new families because, unfortunately, Vermont State Housing Authority doesn't have any vouchers on their end through no fault of their own. Just looking at the reality that we have on what makes sense. But I think so many people have really great ideas on this, and a lot of folks are ready to make some suggested proposals for improvements to H94 to

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: The highly amendable H94.

[Rep. Roxanne Semple]: I

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: have 94.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: I have three Powerball numbers.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: I know, right? Okay, folks. Going to take a break when we get back. We are gonna be hearing from just talking about the impact on municipalities. We're gonna be hearing from the city of Burlington and the town of Shelburne.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Jessica, thank you. Thank you.

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: Thank you. Thanks so much. Feel free to reach out if

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: you have any questions. I appreciate it. Okay. So cancel that. The city of Burlington just canceled. So we were hearing from the town of Shelburne. And then after that, we are going to be moving to the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee. We're gonna be changing topics and looking at recommendations from that advisory committee, which if you wanna take a quick peek, you'll find on the committee's web page. Just as an FYI, I have to and representative, and I have to go downstairs to introduce a couple of our bills. So we'll leave it in your capable hands.

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: What time are you what did

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: you say? What time are you is it like back here?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services)]: We're back here

[Alex Gramblis (ACLU of Vermont, Policy Advocate)]: at