Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Welcome back to this afternoon's testimony. We are going to continue our testimony on h five ninety four and housing and hopefully some of the solutions. There is an adjustment to our agenda that you might not have seen. You're gonna hear from End Homelessness Vermont this afternoon. Instead of Kate Logan, you're gonna hear from her on Tuesday.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Kathleen.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: She was here a minute ago.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Oh, she is.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I saw her on that side, I was looking over there. Welcome, and yes, welcome. Is this Elizabeth? Okay. How are you? Somebody has their sound on. The sound is on. Welcome.

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Good afternoon, all. Thank you for inviting Elizabeth and I in to talk with you this afternoon. I also want to just take a moment to thank you for your support of the BAA that passed yesterday, and also just quickly update you in that it appears that Congress is moving toward the passage of an appropriations bill to fund the HUD Housing Choice Statute program and other HUD funding programs. Although I do want to signal that what we're hearing from industry professionals is that even though the funding is greater than what we anticipated, which is a good thing, we're anticipating about 95% probation of need for Vermont. So what that means, what we're anticipating is that we'll receive 95% of the funds needed to support the program, the housing choice voucher program, as it currently exists today. So essentially, additional cuts. So we'll see. That's what they're forecasting at the moment. But I'll continue to keep you all apprised as this moves forward. And we hope by early next week that we'll have an appropriations bill that we can really understand and know what the impacts will be to Vermonters at that point. Can I

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: just ask a clarifying question, Kathleen? When you say 95%, and does that mean that essentially as maybe people found other housing or their income increased or they might not need a voucher that essentially you have to reduce the current obligations that are out there?

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: That's exactly what that means.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So it doesn't necessarily mean that we have any quote unquote new money coming for people who are waiting for vouchers now. We will not have any new money.

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: And for the record, my name is Kathleen. Yeah, sorry. I am the director of the Vermont State Housing Authority. And Liz, I'll let you introduce yourself.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Hi everyone, I'm Elizabeth Bacon. I'm the managing director of housing programs Administration at the Vermont State Housing Authority.

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: And we have a presentation that we'd like to share.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Awesome, thank you.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Are you able to share my screen? Okay.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Recommendation here, just because you're crowded. Yeah. Todd's not here, maybe you could move this way.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: So,

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: as I'm sure you're well aware, as we've heard about this before, the need for subsidized housing and rental subsidies is growing at a much faster pace than the federal funding allows. Over the last few years, we've seen cuts in federal funding as our funds don't match the level of spending that we require to meet the rising rent costs across the state. So at this point, only one in four eligible families is able to receive rental assistance. Just to give an example, Vermont State Housing Authority has about 3,500 families on our voucher waiting list, tenant based voucher waiting list. And with these federal funding restrictions, we're not able to draw anyone off of that list. So folks are going to be waiting for many years. And so we're proposing the state funded bridge rental assistance program that will help meet the needs of folks who need rental assistance in the meantime. So what we're envisioning is ongoing both tenant based and project based subsidies. Project based means it's connected to the unit. And as Kathleen has talked about this before, it's a really good tool for housing development. And so a lot of affordable housing developers relying on subsidies to get other funds to allow them to build affordable units. And so we're thinking that there's flexibility to do that with this program.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Can I ask a question? Because we always want to make sure that we're sort of thinking on the same wavelength when you say affordable units. Describe what you mean by affordable units.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: So when I say affordable units, I talk about units that are serving folks with low income, so below 50% of area median income. And when I talk about subsidized, it would be folks are paying between 3040% of their income towards their rent.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And we deal with FPLs in here as opposed to area median income. So I'll just throw out a number. So an individual person receiving SSI that's roughly a little less than $1,000 a month. How does that calculate to the figures that you just said?

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: So they would be in the category of extremely low income. So they would

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: be below 30% of AMR. Okay. Thank you.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Sure. So what we're envisioning is a program run very similar to the Housing Choice Voucher program. And we already have a similar program that we've been running for about twenty five years with the Department of Mental Health, the Housing Subsidy Plus Care Program. And that's been a really effective tool to transition folks out of more restrictive settings or to prevent folks from hospitalization or other emergency type services. So we're imagining sort of expanding that model to include other vulnerable populations. And we already have an existing structure across the state where we work with community service providers and owners. So this would really just be building on infrastructure that's already there. We imagine a partnership with the agency of human services. Sorry.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: No, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Yeah, we imagine a partnership with the agency of human services where there may be referrals coming from different departments based on the needs that the state has determined.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So now it's my question. So we've heard a lot of testimony in the last few days, and there's lots of different existing funding sources that provide rental assistance, most of them short term, not all, but most of them short term, how would you intersect them? I know you said collaboration with community partners, but can you describe what that means? Because one of the things that we want the limited resources we have to be used most efficiently and effectively. And so if we think that this is a good idea, then I'm not sure we can keep funding in both places, I guess, is my point.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Yeah, I think the difference between this proposal and some of the others is that it wouldn't be time limited. So we historically have had a preference on our waiting list for folks who are receiving time limited rental assistance, like the Vermont rental subsidy. And when funding was sufficient, those folks would transition in a timely manner. So they wouldn't bump up against that eighteen or twenty four month sort of cliff. Without the availability of federal vouchers, that program gets bottlenecked. And so families either have to continue to request extensions or they fall off that clip and potentially become evicted and all month again. So that's why we would want to not have a time limit

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: on the child.

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Right, and I would just add, right now, you've heard a lot of conversation from me over the last several months about the lack of federal resource to support new rental assistance subsidy. I firmly believe there will be a time and place when that begins to change and we will open our waiting lists again. And so the idea with this program, we're calling it a Bridge Rental Assistance Program or BRAF, is that we would build in a preference to a federal housing choice badger. So the idea would be that we're administering the state funded assistance, but the goal is to move this family or these families to a federally funded voucher. And so there would be that transition when federal funds are available to do that. So is that the same thing as that you would be giving people in this program a priority to move through and then maybe backfilling them with other people who might be on your waiting list generally?

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Yes, so when we think about the populations that this program could serve, we're really thinking about the most vulnerable. So individuals and families exiting homelessness, families engaged with the child welfare system. As some of you might know, we have family unification vouchers now, which is a tool we work directly with Department of Children and Families, and they make referrals to us of families who, but for housing, would be able to reunify with their children. So just to give an example, in 2024, we were able to serve 72 families, new families through that program. In 2025, that was down to 39 families because the lack of resources. And looking ahead into this calendar year, it's not likely we'll be able to have new families join the family unification program. So that's a real gap that we'll see and could be served through this proposal.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So one of the things that I'd be interested to hear from you, and maybe not today, but maybe to have you come back with information, is I appreciate these other departments working with the state housing authority for what they've seen as needs for rental assistance. I wouldn't see adding yet another program. So what I would see is this and this might be just me, but one, because it costs money to administer separate programs. And we would want to be efficient about how we if we decide that there's a need for state rental assistance in the current federal climate, then I think that we need to kind of address that as a sort of unifying thing and not run separate programs, but maybe have those separate programs be listed as priority populations or whatever. Do you understand what I'm getting Yeah,

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: think we kind of envision an AHS rental subsidy program that would funnel from different departments based on the needs of the state of time. Thank you. Sure. And so what we're proposing is a $3,000,000 initial investment that could serve about 200 families for twelve months. We would need some time to plan to work with the state around policies and performance measures and determining who the priority populations would be. Ideally, multi year funding would improve stability. It would make it a lot easier for landlords to come on board and be willing to work with us if they knew that the subsidy wasn't going to end in a year or eighteen months. And then to your point, Rev Wood, the cost sharing from different departments potentially, so folks could sort of pool their funds to serve a greater number of folks.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, I don't think we would be calling it optional, I'm just being honest. Because each one of those you know? So if we were to create something like this, you know, I I don't think I wanna be having people applying through the HOT program being using those funds for rental assistance. Do you know what I'm saying? Because there's definitely need for them for other direct services. And likewise, at the Department of Mental Health, we would definitely work with them to sort of want to make sure that the priority needs of the populations, and as you said, an AHS wide, seems to make a lot of sense. So I'm just I'm just being transparent about if if we were to include something like this, for instance, I don't I don't know if chair Mahali is gonna include this in his housing bill or, whether if we consider this in our homelessness bill. We'll have some discussions about that. We've definitely been coordinating about these kinds of things. But I definitely appreciate the sense of, I understand you're trying to be respectful of those organizations at this point in time, but it's not efficient. All right,

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: thank you. Sure. And this is just sort of a cost comparison. Rental subsidy is the most kind of compassionate way to serve a family as well, but it's also the cheapest. And

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: it comes with long term stability. Go ahead, representative.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: A question. I'm not sure I've seen a dollar figure assigned to emergency shelter before. Maybe I'm just forgetting if someone has shown me that number. I'm curious where that $54,000 directly.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: So, really, Sojourner gave me that from the health of economic opportunity. She estimated about, I think that's $80 per night.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I've seen it's size 120 Yeah.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Because some shelter.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Depends Hotels are $80 a night. Right, excuse me. So

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: again, rental subsidies are a long term viability option for housing development. Kathleen has shared that right now we have a number, three different project based properties that are due to come online and because of our federal funding restrictions, we're not able to honor those commitments right now. And so something like this would allow us to bridge that funding until the federal dollars are available. It also helps to maximize the impact of other state investments. So for example, VHIP, it's a great program. It really improves the quality of housing, but many of the folks that are targeted for those units need a subsidy to be able to actually be successful there. Similar to the Vermont Rentals Subsidy Program, folks generally need more than eighteen months or twenty four months to go from homelessness to self sufficiency. And so this could allow folks to transition to something more long term. And then it just reduces pressures on emergency shelters, healthcare systems, all of those really expensive and traumatic experiences for folks. And we know that rental assistance is a really effective tool at a low cost. It improves outcomes for folks. If they're housed, they're able to take care of their medical needs. They're able to potentially get a job or go back to school or meet their other needs if their housing is secure. We've talked with our neighbors in Massachusetts and Connecticut who've been running similar programs for a very long time. And they do what you referenced, it's one grant, but there's buckets. So they might have a certain dollar figure or a number of subsidies allocated for different populations. And that seems to work really well. And again, we have over twenty years of experience doing this with the Department of Mental Health. And so we've also been following H594 and taking a look at how a rental subsidy program could work in tandem with that. And I think the goals really complement each other. And for especially the tier two and tier three, really to have those come together, folks generally will need subsidies to move through the different levels of care. So with the need to shift away from hotels, this kind of provides a permanent subsidy for folks in a long term housing solution. It's targeting similar high need populations and really working to serve the most vulnerable folks in Vermont. So kind of bottom line, we've talked about this, but it's the most cost effective. It's long term stability for folks. It reduces reliance on those already strained emergency systems, and it just lowers costs across all of those systems.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Questions. We have representative Donahue and just one quick question. I'm just curious, I'm sure you either haven't or about to make the same presentation stairs in the housing committee. Are you scheduled for that? Not yet. Okay. We appreciate being the first. That's all good. And then I'm just wondering, have you had discussions with the administration? So the Department of Housing and Community Development, the Agency of Human Services, have you floated this idea out there in the responsible entities of state government?

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: We have. And part of the reason that our proposal is so late to this committee is that we wanted to have those discussions first. And so Liz, you've had those discussions. Do you

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: wanna share? Sure. We've connected with Department of Corrections And through Susan, we've connected with Dale, DCF as well. We have a call next week with Christina McClure. So we've of touched each department. Department of Mental Health was aware of this proposal as well, because it's sort of expanding on the work that we are to do with them. And in general, I think folks agree with the concept.

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Commissioner Farrell? Yes, I had a commissioner Farrell who was also the commissioner of Vermont State Housing Authority Board. Yes, I have.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: There's a dual role there. Representative Donahue.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: So, I mean, we all know, you know, we have to figure out, you know, the priorities and, you know, the somewhat crude term of bang for the buck and so forth. And one of the really clear things we've heard from a, a high level is the primary cause and driver of homelessness is lack of enough housing. And so if we don't have enough housing, these folks that we want to help stabilize and provide rental assistance for, if they can't find a place at all, then rental assistance is not going to be helpful. And if our backlog for housing is that severe, which I think we know it is, how does this work on that priority level as opposed to number one above all building more housing so that these things can then flow afterwards?

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: So I will begin by saying, we are finding that the supply issue is improving. We were finding that the families that receive assistance in our program are finding housing and they're able, and they're moving. They're moving from where they're living today to a different, better unit or less expensive unit, or depending on family need. And so when we see those types of trends, that signals that the rural market is getting healthier. Now, I will also say that there are markets that are really, really tough. Chittenden County is really, really tough. But when you get into the more rural parts of Vermont, it's not nearly as difficult. Putting in a plug for the work that we do and that we've been doing for many, many years, we have relationships with landlords throughout the state of Vermont. And we have landlords that let us know when they have units available or becoming available. And so I think the fact that we have those relationships also allow us to assist families in finding suitable housing. It's what we do.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thanks, Garofano. Thank you. Thank you both. Nice to see

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: you both. I'm just curious, you mentioned Chittenden County and the tightness of the market. How does Burlington Housing Trust fit into this? And do you guys work with them? Do they have their own vouchers? Do they have programs that are similar to this? And is there any opportunities for collaboration to gain efficiencies? Sure. The Burlington Housing Authority is their own housing authority, their own business, essentially. The Vermont State Housing Authority operates throughout the entire state alongside of the Burlington Housing So the Burlington Housing Authority has a voucher program that they are able to administer within the city and within a six mile radius of the city.

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Our authorizing legislation allows us to work everywhere in the state. And so we have not thought about collaborating with the Burlington Housing Authority on this initiative. I don't think it would be I think it would be more administratively difficult to do that. And one of the reasons that this becomes really efficient for us to propose is that we have a network of staff in place. We have relationships with landlords. And so if funded, we would administer these subsidies as if they were a housing choice option. It would be transparent to the landlord. The landlord wouldn't know. Excuse me, transparent wasn't the right word. The landlord would not know the type of assistance that this family was receiving. We would know, the referring agency would know, but the landlord would see it as just a rent subsidy, which I think is important from an equity point of view.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I guess to follow-up on that, I think obviously we don't want to supplant what an existing organization is already doing, a private entity like a municipality, to have them then be shifted into a new program. So that would be something needed, detail needed to be worked I'm interested with, I think I saw it was around 12,000 and change for the rental subsidy. I don't know any place where you can get an apartment for $1,000 a month. So I realize it's a subsidy, but this also sounds then it would be for people who have some sorts of income other than SSI only or disability income.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: So yeah, it would even out. So our average housing assistance payment now across the whole program is about $953 So we bumped that up a little bit, assuming we're gonna serve lower income folks. But yeah, with SSI, with Reach Up, I'm sure folks would have employment income, so it bridges that gap. But like I said, across our whole program, the average system payment is about $9.50. So, I

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: guess it'd be helpful to know what's the range. Sure.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: I think the range is $5 to $2,500 depending on

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: the family situation. So you have in your current programs that you're operating for folks, obviously you've thought about how to administer it. And so with the $3,000,000 investment, how many approximately, how many households do you think that you would be able to serve?

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: We think we could serve about 200 houses.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: 200, okay, you said that, yeah. Yeah. And then what are your administrative costs associated with this? Or would this require additional staffing? Would it sort of just maybe build on what you have existing? I'm just trying to see.

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Right. Well, we certainly would build on our present administrative approach, we would need to earn some fees for our work to pay staff and so on. I could get back to you with what that-

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, mean, would be helpful to know, are you talking about 5%? Are you talking about 12? Are you talking about 20%?

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: What we're earning with the housing subsidy plus care program is 10%.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And when you say plus care, you're not doing the care. They have access to the care, like from To the designated agencies. To the designated agencies. Okay. So, I mean, it would be tricky and would require, as you've said in the beginning part, time to sort of ramp up. And if we were to talk about how we would engage these other existing rental assistance programs into a more comprehensive program, what might be required? Because it would be too bad to just kind of have you know, call it one program and then have really five different programs operating under one program. Because I'm not really talking about entitled only. I'm trying to figure out how we could do this AHS wide. Yeah. Representative Cole.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Thank you so much. We know one of the many drivers of homelessness right now is no cause eviction. For example, yesterday I had three witnesses who have all had that experience. Know plenty in my community as well. So I'm curious for folks who have enrolled in your programs with the rental assistance, is it enough basically to prevent a landlord from saying, well, I don't really care regardless of the subsidy, I'm gonna run it up to someone else. And I your positive relationship with landlords could be beneficial in that, but curious about trends there. Do you still see people experiencing no cause evictions even with the subsidies?

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: On occasion. Yes. Yes, I think my opinion about that is that it's often an easier path for landlords to take. I

[Esme Cole (Member)]: guess maybe just to finish up on that comment, know, obviously some kind of injection is needed to support affordable housing, but I hope that we don't inject it in somewhere that doesn't even matter because they're gonna be evicted anyway. You know what I mean? I mean, maybe that's like blunt or, but hopefully that makes But

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: I will say the families that we work with have the support of our staff. We have a field services staff that live and work in their communities, and they're the ones that are boots on the ground, working with landlords, working with tenants, and they often serve as mediators for situations that crop up. My experience is landlords don't wanna have to evict tenants. And so the work that we bring also to this space is we're not just a rental assistance administrator, we have relationships with families and landlords. And so we're able to prevent those evictions from even occurring.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Go ahead, Oh, no, I'm sorry. Representative Donahue had before you, and then Representative Bishop. Thanks. I don't want to sound picky, but

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: and it's still a huge cost benefit savings. But your slide said that the Bridge Rental Assistance Program per household is about 12,240. But I put 200 families into $3,000,000 and come up with 15,000.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, everything I discovered is the same thing.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: That figure did include some administrative fee, I think about 10%.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: But administrative

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: costs are part of the cost per household you've got to divide it up into. Yes, so those figures can be adjusted. Thank you.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I was just figuring out how many more families we would serve for $3,000,000 This

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: is a question related to landlords. You talked about the strong relationships that you can often form. You've touched on the challenge of Chittenden County being particularly tight, other parts of the state. It's gotten a little less pressure. But are there two or three things you would suggest that could help bring additional landlords into a working relationship with the BSHA?

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Yes. Also, the Vermont State Housing Authority, also administers two other state funded initiatives. One is our landlord's relief program that is not in need of reappropriation this year, but it's been a very successful program that's available to landlords who agree to rent to a family with a subsidy. It's really a risk pool type of program so that if there are damages or unpaid rent, a landlord can come forward and request relief from this program. That's been hugely successful in incentivizing landlords to take a risk and rent to families with subsidy.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: So that's part of an upfront conversation, if you will, that you have with someone who may be considering working Exactly.

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: So that risk pool is available. We're also administering a rental arrears assistance fund, which is in need of reappropriation this year. And that is a fund that is available to prevent the eviction of tenants for sustainable tenancies.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Tracy, can you stop sharing your screen so we can see who else is up there? Thank you.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Sure. Other questions? Thank you. We have been hearing from testimony as we take testimony as five ninety four and on the issue of homelessness and certainly her joint fiscal committee and the board all throughout the summer and fall about these issues. And we don't see any light at the end of the tunnel on the federal scene. And yet, we need to do something, would be my guess. And so I appreciate the fact that you have experience and a track record and the ease of moving to something would be desirable for sure, as opposed to creating something different and new. So my big thing, and I'd be interested to hear more of your conversations, how we can think about this as one program, one AHS program, and not have separate programs, because I'm definitely not in favor of separate programs. Because it's housing. And we agree So with

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: I think after our conversation next week with, who are we meeting with? Deputy Secretary We're of the gonna talk that through, and we can report back some ideas. But I'm confident we have relationships with partners across state government, and we've been working with them already. These aren't new relationships that we're creating. It would just be rethinking how we do this work and how we work together.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, and honestly, I would be expecting from all AHS departments is that they would all financially contribute towards this. Only DCF, which we're talking about now, but we have failed budget here as well. We've got substance use at BDH and people in recovery there. And we've got mental health as you already have. So, in corrections, I think that we sort of have to have a sort of meeting of the minds, if you will, about, is this something that we want to as a group pursue? And if it is, then everybody's gonna have to chip in. Yeah, go ahead, Anne. I would add to that,

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: just a reminder of the committee that we had a task force or whatever that we pointed specifically on housing for the DD population, and that one of its recommendations was, you know, this is something mental health has. There's like a real parity issue here, and so Why that goes would only they have? When the need is just so great. And often folks are

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: complex, right? They don't just fit into one bucket. They're connected with multiple departments. Yeah,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: why services. That's right. Exactly. So there has to be and it sounds like you're doing that. You're building the relationships and trust within other parts of AHS that you might not have worked as closely with. And I think that would be really important in order to get people to come to the table and say, yes. So I think you probably will meet with lots of folks in this building who understand the need for this particularly now. And I like the fact that it's flexible. I think it also is important for people to understand that this, once created, is an ongoing obligation for some period of time. And so we need to look at this at the out years and be thinking about that. And I don't know with the other programs that you've been operating already, what the turnover rate. How long do people generally stay in subsidy? I know for some people have disabilities and might not be always needing this or some sort of federal subsidy. But I think you also probably serve some working families that need a little bit of help in order to sort of get over that hump, but then they may have increases in their employment. Do you have an exit rate or some sort of turnover rate that you keep data on?

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: We do. I would say for programs like the Housing Subsidy Trust Care program, or our mainstream bachelor program, which is a type of subsidy that's targeted to non elderly disabled folks, turnover rate is relatively non existent. We find once folks are stably housed, they continue to receive assistance. On the family side, there is more turnover, but for different reasons. Folks do outgrow the need for rental assistance and leave the program, or there could be behavioral issues that lead to the loss of the subsidy And as so do you have a sense of what the turnover is on the family side?

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: I think nationally folks spend about five years on a subsidy program. I think we could get the numbers for our specific.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'm just trying to think about future out years and how much will be able to come back into the program from existing appropriations versus what new appropriations might.

[Kathleen Berk (Executive Director, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: I think it's also important to look at the census or who's enrolled. I can tell you, 80% of the folks receiving rental assistance through our agency right now are extremely low income And so these are folks on social security disability, social security, public assistance, very low income households. Thank you

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: both very much, I really appreciate I like when people come forward with ideas for Okay. All right. Kim, hi, nice to see you.

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: Hello. Good afternoon, Chair Wood and members of the committee. For the record, I am Kim Fitzgerald, the CEO for Cathedral Square, and I want to thank you all for the opportunity to have me here with you today. I'm especially grateful for being able to be on Zoom. I've been sick all week, so for your benefit as well as mine, it's probably best that I'm here, although I would much prefer to be in person with you all today. And I'm gonna just jump in, is that okay?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes. That's great. Thank you. And members, we do have Kim's presentation on our iPad. So I think that we'll go with seeing you versus or you can share your screen if you want to, if that's easier for you either way. But then when you're done, take your screen down so we can ask questions seeing your face.

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: Okay, perfect. I can do that. Well, just want

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: to start with a little

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: bit about a Cathedral Square before I go into the PowerPoint anyway. So I just want to share that, you know, we are the statewide administrators and creators of SASH, or Support and Services at Home, as well as now our HIP, Housing Incentive Program model, and we own and manage independent housing, mostly for those 55 and older, and those with disabilities. We have 28 communities. We operate in Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle County, serving over 1,300 residents in addition to two assisted living communities. We are a local nonprofit and we have, we're going to be celebrating our fiftieth anniversary next year.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Wow.

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: So, yes, to be clear, I want to start off with that we are not a homeless shelter operator or a more emergency housing provider. That said, we are part of the housing continuum working to solve the homelessness crisis. We are a member of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance, and we focus on preventing homelessness for all of our residents and participants. We have reviewed H594, and we appreciate the efforts to focus the session again on the homelessness crisis, so thank you for that. We are members of the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont, so HHAB, and I know Chad Simmons testified with you guys on Tuesday. So we do align with HHAV's position on the bill, and we'll work with them to share our unique perspective as affordable housing organizations that specialize in housing and supporting older adults. For the rest of my testimony, I really will be describing our HIP model that aligns with the opportunities that HHAV identified in their testimony, which is really to prevent and address homelessness, specifically with fully funding evidence based data informed and person centered approaches that we know work, tailoring it to meet individuals and families' needs. Also having it be human centered that prioritizes dignity, choice, and long term stability, and that it's locally driven. So, with all of that, I am now going to try to share my screen and go to the presentation.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Oops. Not gathering it.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That's weird.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Seeing that.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, we're not seeing it yet.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Yeah. I don't know what's happening to it. So it sounds like you have

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: it in front of you.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'm wondering why it's.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I can also

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Oh, question.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: It just went completely blank. Sorry.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That's okay. We have it we have it in front of us, and people can go to our web page and see it if they if they want to.

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: Okay. The only problem is I don't have it in front of me now to walk

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: away. Sorry.

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: Sorry. But I'm thinking

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I can't help you on that one. Sorry.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: No. I

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: know you

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: probably can't. So here we go. I'm going to I do have it in front of me now. So if you don't mind, I'm just going to why don't I just try I got to try it one more time. I'm sorry. This is this is frustrating. Come on, is this going to work this time? Yes?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes.

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: All right, so sorry about that. I'm not sure what was happening. Was like hiding behind something. So I'm actually going leave it in this model just so we don't, I don't mess it up. Okay, so anyways, yes, so Cathedral Square created what we're calling HIP. We wanted something in positive kind of in name, so it does stand for Housing Incentive Program. And, so let's see, okay. So some background here is that Cathedral Square's mission, as I mentioned earlier, we're going to be celebrating fifty years soon, really is to house those who are low income, who are underserved, and we really have been serving formerly homeless since our existence, really. But we never really tracked it, we didn't really have a need to. So in 2015, when the Governor actually 2016, when there was the Governor's mandate that we had to actually house 15% of our portfolio for those who were exiting homeless, we really did start to track at that point. And then we really started to prioritize on our waitlist too, to be taking in people from homelessness, prioritizing over others on our waitlist. And so now, fast forward to now, we have over 200 people who were formerly homeless that are now living with us. And what we started to hear from on the ground, this kind of dovetails, yes?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Kim, can I just interrupt for a minute? So it's not doing people any good, for you to be in that mode because we can't really see the presentation of the your big HIP. Try going to slideshow and see what happens. All right, there you Is

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: that better? Thank you. Appreciate that, Chair Wood. Basically, yes, have these 200 folks who are formerly homeless that are living with us. And partly because of what you heard in the previous conversation is we were really having a lot of concentration of formerly homeless in some of our buildings because it's those that are Section eight, have Section eight subsidy, which is where folks really needed to go, right? To have that subsidy to be more successful. And so our staff started coming to us saying, my gosh, we really need help. Like what I didn't say earlier is that that mandate that came through with the Governor never had any service dollars associated with it. So we have to house the homeless, but we don't get any kind of funding to help support that. So staff started coming to us saying, you know, we need support, like this is really hard. The other thing that we started seeing is that the amount of evictions that we were starting is astronomical for Cathedral Square. So I've been with Cathedral Square now, gosh, in twenty six years now going on twenty seven years, and I would tell you that I don't even know if we would have 19 eviction in ten years, let alone having 19 evictions started within a year and a half. Eviction is our absolutely last resort. We obviously try not to evict people, we never evict for no cause. And so, this was very, very concerning. And then looking in a little bit deeper, I realized that of those 19 evictions that were started, these did not end in eviction, but they were started, that 12 of them were for people coming from homelessness. And I thought, this is not acceptable. I do not want to be a revolving door for having them coming in, getting a house, you know, getting a roof over their head, having a stable housing with a voucher, with subsidy, and then being evicted and losing that. And then if you lose that subsidy, it's near impossible to get it back. So we did not want to be this revolving door. So I went to our staff and I said, we have to do something different, this is not working. Now I will share with you, there were people who came to me that said, Kim, you serve over 200 people who are formerly homeless, having 12 people under eviction, that's actually pretty good statistics. And I just have to share that that's not the way that we believe that to be the case. We want it too much better. We don't want this to be an evolving door for those folks. And so we said, okay, let's really focus on properties that we have that already have some intensive services on the ground to really help support folks. First of all, we have SASH at all of our properties. It stands for Support and Service at Home, and it really has nursing as well as care coordination, but it really is about healthcare side of things. It's more on the prevention of healthcare and working at people's goals and where they want to be with their own health. We also have embedded mental health clinicians at our properties. In fact, we have partnered with Howard Center for over six years at some of our sites in Burlington to have a mental health clinician right embedded at the SAASH panel. We also have a pilot across the whole state as far as SAASH and mental health as well. But for this part of this program, I'm really talking about the Burlington area. And then we also have under Cathedral Square, a one staff member who is under the SHINES title, and it really is about supporting folks to remain housed with us successfully. And really she has a whole variety of things that she works on. She might be working with somebody who has hoarding issues and keeps failing their housing inspection, their physical inspection, to somebody who has schizophrenia. I mean she has a whole broad scope of really trying to help folks. But we decided to add a position to specifically a hip manager position to specifically work with those who are coming from homelessness. And I do want to share before I leave this screen that Chuck, who's standing here in this picture, comes from homelessness and he lives with us now at our Allard Square property in South Burlington. And he is now, not only he's successfully housed, but he is now our resident manager. So a complete success area where he actually helps the entire community at Allard Square. So how our model works is that in order to be eligible, because it is voluntary, this is not a mandatory program, but to be eligible to participate in the HIP program, you have to have moved in from homelessness recently or previously have moved in from homelessness. So you have to have, at some point have been homeless. And then there is a menu of services that you can choose from, and you have to complete something on that menu of service every month to in order to receive an incentive. And the menu of services can be a wide range of things. It could be, because we know that one size does not fit all, right? So for one participant, it might be attending an AA meeting. For another participant, it might be doing a training on budgeting. For another person, it might be they haven't spoken to their son in ten years, and they're going to reach out to their son. So it's wide open, and if participants don't see something on the menu that pertains to them that particular month or they feel that they can be successful at, they can come up with their own ideas and ask for approval for those and the hip manager can give approval. And what we do is if the person maintains successful tenancy, and that includes paying their rent on time and not having any lease violations, in addition to completing one item on the menu of service, then they are given a monetary incentive. It's half given to them, so $50 cash given to them, dollars 50 put any bank account savings for them. We also have put into place with the program that you can borrow against your savings account, but that you can't get the next incentive until you've paid that back or made it whole. So if you if you have the money in the bank, you got to first of all have the money in the bank, but if you have to say you borrowed $25 out of your savings account, in order to get your next incentive, would have to have paid that $25 back. And that you can stay in the program even if you miss a month here or there. And so what that really gets to is we all have bad months, we all have things that happen in our lives, a car that breaks down or something that happens. And that doesn't penalize the person. We just pick up the next month just where they left off. So it doesn't have to be consecutive months. Part of this all comes from three different kind of areas I do want to call out so that you're aware of where I came up with all of this. First of all, I used to be on the A New Place board, and they have a similar program in where their homeless participants move upstairs when they're ready, and then they start paying rent on a room, and that rental money goes into a savings account for them to save to go towards a security deposit to help them with in the future. Sorry, was there something? Nope. Okay. So that's part of it. So that was kind of the savings account piece. Then the other group I met with is contingency management, working out of corrections for those with, especially for those for substance or drug use issues, where they pay their participants to check-in on a weekly basis, and they pay for just showing up, they'll pay them, and then if they take a drug test they pay them even more. So it's the incentivizing there. In addition, I met with Spectrum who's doing something similar with their youth, and they're paying about $1,500 a month, which is really helping their youth have rental, the rent for the month, again to help them on their journey and helping to support them. So again, based on other models that are working, this is where we came up with this. And I'll give the next slide kind of gives you a snapshot of kind of how it's paid out. We know that through all of our years of housing, we know that those first three months of occupancy can really make or break a situation. I mean it's when you meet your neighbors for the first time, it's when you make first impressions, you're learning kind of the rules of the building. And so we knew those first three months were critically important to have these touch points and to make these payments. But, and you'll see this a little bit later, lesson learned is already within this first year, we started December, so we're just over a year now into this model, that we realized we wanted even more touch points that first year. So now it's the first six months, every month we're touching base, you have to have kept, you know, retained your positive tenancy and you have had to have done something on the The menu of other thing on the menu of services, I'm sorry I forgot to mention earlier, you can also do something for the community. Something that benefits the community can also be part of one of those menu of services items that you can do. So we upped the first years, this is a change we made from the very original plan, to have nine touch points, nine incentive payments within that year, each are $50 And then we, over the five year program, we kind of wean off of those payments. And again, that's another research component of this is that research shows that if you're able to maintain new behaviors over a five year period of time, that the likelihood of you being able to do that for the long term is very, very high, a high success rate. As you'll see here, a participant has the opportunity to have $18.75 dollars actually given to them in cash, and then at the completion of five years, they're able to then get that $18.75 out of their savings account and be given to them. Our hope of course is that it just transitions over to a bank account in their name to establish credit for them. So a grand total potential for each participant is $3,750 over a five year period of time. We have been fundraising for this model, and that's our total funding at this point in time has been through fundraising, and we do hope to get to the point where we're able to serve up to 60 people is our goal. Currently we have 25 active participants in six of Cathedral Square's buildings as listed here, and in three months of this year we paid out 15 incentives, our highest amount each month. Little hard to quantify that only because, of course, everybody can start the program at a different time, and there are different months that have the incentive payments and different months that don't. But in total, we have paid out 175 incentives totaling over $7,000 in this past year. And HIP has worked with folks, I'm sorry, my thing's blocked here a little bit here. We have 18 participants who were struggling to pay their rent, five of which had received a notice to quit. Again, that's starting the kind of eviction process because they cannot pay their rent. And we have 13 of these have all been resolved, including all of the notice to quit. So there are five folks that we are currently still working with, but they not least they are not at a notice to quit yet. So their housing is not in jeopardy at this moment, and we're continuing to work on them, working with them. We have 22 participants who have signed up for SASH, which to me is phenomenal because it really does show that they have learned to kind of trust us and be able to see that they can receive these free services and take a very active engaged role in their lives and where they want to make improvements and where they want to learn more, which is a lot of what SASH is about. And then we have 15 participants who have seen the SASH emotional wellness clinician, which is the embedded mental health clinician, at least once. We already have some lessons learned. As I've already mentioned, we knew that the payments in that initial year, we really did have to kind of up those to be more touch points in the initial year. We also, and we knew this kind of going into it, but we really learned that addiction services are really a key component and we do work with Turning Point and those kind of cases where there really is some real need there for extra support. And we have had three people drop out. One person does have a severe alcohol issue, and we do hope that he might come back. We do worry about his housing and his being able to be securely housed for the long term. And the other two folks actually talked about feeling a little bit like we were kind of, what do they call it? Like snooping in their business, I guess is what they were saying. And you know, they may feel that way, right? But the truth is one has quite a bit of paranoia, so that's not quite surprising to us. We do hope over time again, as she sees the hip manager around the building and she sees other people engaging with the services, that that may change for her, but I think that is going to have to be over time and building a trusting relationship. And then the other person, the third person has already come back and said, Now, can I join back onto this if I want to? So we really do have our fingers crossed that she will come back. So time will tell on that. Then I wanted to just share.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Oh, yeah, sorry, didn't realize. Yeah, we're needing to move along a little bit, Kim.

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: Okay. Okay. I'll go very quick. This is actually my last slide.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes, I love success stories, so

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: So these are two brothers from a very large family in Burlington, both ended up homeless. As you can see here, John said that he was staying at a shelter while working six days a week, and it was a really humbling experience for him, but he kept pushing forward. And that when we called to let him know that he had an apartment in a Cathedral Square community, he said it was just a new chapter in his life. And then his brother James said that the program, meaning the HIP program has been life changing for him. And he said, it's not just about having a roof over our heads, it's about feeling secure and supported. And we do have a HIP video, which I know we shared with representative Wood, and I'm happy to share with all of you. And that participant really shares how this model, it's the first time he has really felt heard and seen, and that he feels like he has a true friend in the hip manager, and that it's also holding him accountable, and he said it's really made a huge difference in his life. With that, I I'll do have more, but I will stop there to see if there's questions.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. We have one question before we move on. Thank you.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Thank you for sharing this. I really like this. It's well designed. Just thinking a lot about the effects of poverty and trauma on the brain and dopamine receptors, I think this is great. I did just have one question. Let's say someone moves before the five years. Maybe they've discovered they might be more successful in a different apartment in a different area. How would the escrow funds be handled?

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: Yes. We have that all as part of the program. We can actually if it's a successful departure, they would they would receive their the amount in the escrow.

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: Okay. Great. Thank you so much.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yep. Thank you, Kim. I appreciate you bringing this forward. And as it connects to trying to keep people housed, appreciate that very much.

[Kim Fitzgerald (CEO, Cathedral Square)]: Well, thank you very much for having me. Thank you all.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: All right. Take care. Okay. I was just gonna say we have legal aid. Thank you for being here, Deanna, appreciate it.

[Deanna Hartog (Poverty Law Fellow, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Absolutely, thank you so much for having me, and appreciate the flexibility with Zoom. Unfortunately, I got stranded in DC, this worked out much better. Thank you, Chair Wood and members of the committee. For the record, my name is Deanna Hartog, and I'm the poverty law fellow with the Poverty Law Project and Vermont Legal Aid. Just a little bit of context, my two year fellowship is focused on advocating and providing legal services for people experiencing homelessness. I'm now in my second year of my fellowship, and I really appreciate the opportunity to provide some testimony about this bill based on what I've learned so far. So, I do want to start by saying this plainly and sincerely that Vermont Legal Aid does not believe that H594 in its current form will achieve the outcome we know this committee wants to see, ending homelessness and reducing unsheltered homelessness in Vermont. At the same time, we really appreciate the opportunity to testify. We recognize that every member of this committee cares deeply about the issue, and we know that this bill reflects real concern, real urgency, and bipartisan leadership around a crisis that affects thousands of Vermonters, including many of our clients. We're really welcoming the opportunity to work with you because we believe that we share the same goal, keeping people safe, housed, and building a system that actually works in the real world. So, I'm gonna provide a high level overview of our concerns with H594, and importantly, what we believe would work based on data, lived experience, and decades of evidence. So, at its core, H594 is built around restrictions, sanctions, time limits, and sorting mechanisms, all in a reality where there's just nowhere for people to go. The bill assumes that if we tighten eligibility, impose deadlines, and require compliance, that people will move more quickly into permanent housing. But that assumption doesn't really match what's happening on the ground in Vermont today. The reality is that we do not have enough affordable housing, we do not have enough shelter capacity, we don't have enough case managers, and I think that's really critical, And we don't have enough supportive housing for people with disabilities or complex needs. And when those structural realities exist, rationing shelter does not reduce homelessness, it increases unsheltered homelessness. One of our most serious concerns is the bill's reliance on residency requirements and the so called Return Home Program. Conditions access to emergency housing on proof of Vermont residency and then creates a program that pays to relocate people who are deemed non residents out of the state. As I believe the committee already has discussed, this approach raises profound constitutional, legal, and ethical concerns, but I actually want to focus on the practical harm. I think this proposal is built on a false assumption that Vermont is a magnet for people experiencing homelessness, and we just don't have the data to support that claim. Reporting here in Vermont has shown that the vast majority of people experiencing homelessness in Vermont became homeless here because rents have skyrocketed, vacancies have disappeared, and wages have not increased. People aren't coming to Vermont for services, they're actually losing their housing and becoming homeless in Vermont. And when we base policy on myth, we get bad outcomes. The structure of the bill also creates a coercive system, deny people shelter based on residency and then offer relocation as the only alternative. For some people sleeping outside in January, it's not really a voluntary choice, it's desperation. I do want to say that programs like this have been tried elsewhere, and evidence shows that they don't end homelessness. They simply move it from one place to another, usually temporarily, and often with devastating human consequences. We should not be in the business of exporting people in crisis. We should be investing in solutions that actually stabilize people where they are. H594 also imposes strict time limits, sixty days for some placements, one hundred and eighty days for others. And those timelines might make sense on paper, but they don't make sense in Vermont's housing market. DCF's own data shows that even with significant services, as they phrase it, only a small portion of people successfully transition from permanent housing within these timeframes. The twenty twenty five point in time count shows that seventy six percent of people experiencing homelessness have been unhoused for ninety one days or longer, including fifty eight percent who have been homeless for one hundred and eighty days or longer, and thirty two percent who have been homeless for more than a year. Sixty or even one hundred and eighty days is simply not enough to find affordable, accessible, stable housing in Vermont's current market. We also know from the Vermont State Auditor's recent report that nearly half of people placed through coordinated entry into permanent housing are returning to homelessness. Time limited programs that push people out before housing is available are not going to create stability, they're going to create churn. People cycle between shelters, motels, encampments, hospitals, and jails. If the goal is fewer people experiencing homelessness, which we know it is, then forcing people out of shelter before housing exists moves us in the opposite direction. And I know several other folks have testified about this as well. Another major concern of ours is the bill's use of punitive sanctions, including the thirty day periods of ineligibility for things like non compliance, declining placements, or undefined misconduct. In practice, we know that these sanctions disproportionately harm people with disabilities, mental illness, trauma histories, and substance use disorder. And while the bill does include a disability exception, it places the burden on people in crisis to prove that their behavior was disability related. It often requires documentation that people simply cannot obtain while they're homeless. Our casework shows this very clearly. We've routinely seen people who have sanctioned, not because they violated the rules, but because they behaved like people who are traumatized, disabled, or sick. And when placements fail, the solution should be a different placement that might fit better, not putting someone back out on the street. Punishment doesn't stabilize people, housing does. I also want to talk briefly about due process. So as we know, emergency housing is often the difference between safety and serious harm. But under the current system and under this proposed bill, people frequently lose their housing without, with little or no advanced notice. When we're talking about something as critical as housing, day of notice is simply insufficient. Section seven B of the bill requires written notice, including the factual and legal basis for decisions, effective dates, and appeal rights. And this is very good, and we support it. However, we do want to note that DCF does not give people prior written notice before people lose their emergency housing. And in the context of the class action litigation case that we're doing, Groundworks, DCF has also denied that they're required to do so by law. We think this violates due process and is cruel and bad practice. In many cases, people don't know they're being exited until the day that they're going to lose their housing. It's particularly bad in times of mass exits, but it happens during regular time too. In a regular case, in a recent case at Vermont Legal Aid, a client was told on Tuesday that she had been approved for another seven days of emergency housing. She thought she was good. Then she was woken up on Wednesday morning by a call saying that she had to be out of the motel by eleven that day. Client has really serious medical problems. She has trauma from a recent criminal assault, and when we met her, she was crying uncontrollably. It turned out that she was actually eligible to remain in emergency housing, but it took several days to find out that DCF just wanted a copy of her cane prescription to confirm her eligibility. She lost her emergency housing for five days before everything got sorted out. If she had gotten written notice in advance, then the paperwork issue could have been resolved without the traumatic, chaotic, and awful period of losing her housing due to a paperwork issue. So due process is not a technicality, it's a stabilizing force. People need clear written information about how long they're approved, what they need to do to stay eligible, when and why they could lose their housing, and how to appeal. And this information, again, should be provided before someone is being kicked out of the motel with nowhere else to go. Without this due process, the system becomes chaotic and traumatic for families, for providers, and for the state. Speaking to the tiered shelter systems, these systems inevitably create categories that we call deserving and less deserving people. They disadvantage those that have the greatest needs and they reward those that are already facing fewer barriers. We know that the evidence is clear. Low barrier, non punitive access to shelter and housing leads to better outcomes. Homelessness is a system failure, not a moral one. I think it's really important to make that distinction. Our policies should reflect that. So perhaps the most important question that this bill doesn't answer is where are people supposed to go? Shelters are already full, staff are burnt out, underpaid, and building new capacity takes time, money, and serious workforce investment. The bill contemplates reducing motel use before alternatives exist, and if that happens, people are not going to disappear. Going to move into encampments, emergency rooms, and the criminal legal system. That's more expensive, more dangerous, and more harmful. So what works? We know what works because we've seen it. The most successful homelessness reduction efforts in this country, including among veterans, share some common elements that I want to share. Number one, a commitment to housing everyone, not just those who meet behavioral thresholds. Number two, access to permanent, affordable, and supportive housing, including for people with disabilities, eviction histories, and criminal records. Number three, a well supported workforce with fair wages, training, and career paths. And number four, robust case management and housing navigation, scale to the real need. These approaches cost less in the long run and they save lives. So, Vermont is at a critical moment right now in how we respond to homelessness. We can choose policies that ration shelter, impose restrictions, and push people into deeper crisis, or we can choose evidence based solutions that house people, stabilize them, and reduce homelessness over time. Vermont Legal Aid urges this committee to fundamentally reconsider H five ninety four as drafted. We stand ready to work with you to build a bill that reflects the realities on the ground and the values we share. Thank you for your time and your leadership and your commitment to Vermonters in crisis, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you very much, Deanna. I appreciate it. And I appreciate your specific recommendations and the things that you reacted to in terms of the bill itself.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Absolutely.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Questions from committee members. I have one question, and it's particularly around the due process considerations that you brought up. And I think both last year's bill and this year's bill tries to capture the fact that people need due process in this regard. And I guess I have two questions. One is about the verification of disability, because that seems to be an ongoing appeal topic that we hear about from the field. And the other is, I can sort of predict what DCF will say about written notice that they don't have people's addresses. They don't know where they are. They might be at hotels. They might be at a shelter. They might not be at either. And they would they will find that unworkable would be my guess. Mhmm. I'm just if if you could comment on both of those things, I would appreciate it.

[Deanna Hartog (Poverty Law Fellow, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Sure. I'm gonna start with the second since that's fresh in my mind. One one solution to this that they've begun implementing as a result of the Groundworks litigation that I mentioned is sending notices to email addresses. Of course, not everyone in this program has an email address and we recognize that and that's obviously a barrier for some folks, but email addresses are much especially if they're in and out of certain locations. It also makes it a lot easier for them to then share that with us or with other advocates that are trying to support them. So we really urge DCF to continue this practice of sending notices notices to email addresses and to also allow folks in the program to provide potentially multiple email addresses. For example, if was, if I was representing someone, they could provide my email address, they could provide their case manager's email and then theirs, just in case there's issues with them navigating that interaction. So that's the comment on that. And then the first question that you had about disability, can you clarify a little bit what the question is about to verify disability, just so I understand?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Sure. So there have been a number of cases that have gone to the Human Services Board or where people requested accommodations as required by the ADA, and the notice of the verification of disability, if you will. We seem to hear from the department or the agency that all they believe right now that happens is an attestation of having a disability. And the last form that I looked at that the department uses wasn't just an attestation. I mean, was required to be It health care wasn't self attestation. But that seems to be the perpetual notion of what is happening. And have you experienced that legal aid? Or have your colleagues experienced that legal aid? I guess any difficulties or challenges, I guess, I would say, with the disability verification process.

[Deanna Hartog (Poverty Law Fellow, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that clarification, Sherwood. My experience, and maybe something has changed recently, but my experience was that the two zero one gs VR form is the disability variance form, and that does need to be filled out by some provider with, you know, with credentials. So I haven't heard about self attestation. I think that's a wonderful idea. Yeah. To just allow someone to attest to that. Speaking to your question about, you know, barriers, I think the form, as I've seen it, is a huge barrier for folks. A lot of people that I work with don't necessarily have providers. They might not have providers that they consistently see, and they don't have ways to get to those providers, and if there's a walk in clinic or something like that, a lot of those providers are hesitant to sign something if they don't repeatedly have that client as a patient. So that's a very significant barrier for a lot of my clients, especially with mental health. Sometimes my clients had a mental health provider confirm the diagnosis, but that relationship fell off when they became unhoused, when they had to start dealing with all those issues. And so I think that's a really big issue, and I think that's also a reason why it does go to appeals, is because if that form cannot be completed properly, then there are ways to attest to it in a fair hearing to demonstrate that disability. So I think having a rigid form, and we saw this also with the governor's executive order and having a rigid form or rigid conditions that would qualify as being disabled enough, it's just not holistic, it's not trauma informed, and it presents barriers for people that already have enough barriers just accessing this.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well, and I will say, we heard from a witness this morning just before lunch that sort of started off his testimony with talking about reclaiming people's humanity or personhood or something. It was something along And those the fact that if you're homeless and you're carrying around you know, the very smallest amount of things that you can possibly carry, you probably if by if you ever had it, you've lost your identity forms of identity and insurance and and not insurance cards, but, you know, like social security cards and birth certificates and things like that. Okay,

[Deanna Hartog (Poverty Law Fellow, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I Absolutely. Appreciate And especially for clients of mine, again, disabilities who are trying to prove that disability to the department, I think that humanity is a really important component because I think it's dehumanizing for someone to have to beg to be considered disabled enough or to demonstrate that disability. I've had folks with amputations, things like that, that were not able to provide necessarily the documentation that the department is looking for, but clearly the disability is a very significant part of that person's life. So again, we recommend staying away from rigid forms and things like that to qualify, and self attestation sounds wonderful to me. If the department says that's what they're doing, we'd love to see that.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. I'm not sure they use the word self. I don't wanna speak for them. They use the word attestation. And I don't know if they were perceiving that that's what healthcare professionals were just doing, would be my guess. But we also have heard from a number of witnesses that the previous eligibility for disability relied solely on SSI or SSDI determination. And I guess the same thing I just spoke of earlier applies in that case. Lots of people have lost that for a variety of reasons, as we heard in testimony this morning. Absolutely. What's the length of

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: time it takes to apply and be Exactly.

[Deanna Hartog (Poverty Law Fellow, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I mean, speaking to the disability, that's also a huge barrier is I'll say to folks, Well, can you get to your doctor to get them to sign this form? And they'll say, Well, my doctor says the next appointment is two months from now, or something like that, and I have no way to get there, I don't have transportation. So it's just, again, it's these barriers placed for folks that are already dealing with enough and makes it really difficult to manage.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And as we heard from one of our very first witnesses this week, people are

[Elizabeth "Liz" Bacon (Managing Director of Housing Programs Administration, Vermont State Housing Authority)]: complex. Systems should be simple. Yes. I loved that.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. Thank you very much for being here this afternoon.

[Deanna Hartog (Poverty Law Fellow, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. So we're just gonna take a very brief five minute break, and we will be back at 02:30.