Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, good afternoon everybody. Is Esme on or? She's here. Oh, she's here here. Oh, okay. She's right here,

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: I know.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, I didn't know. She was not feeling well, so I didn't know. She just came in.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: She was running.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. All good. Okay. So we are going to have some discussion about which now you will see on our agenda is Doctor twenty 6 and then some other number. That's the new number for people sitting around the outside for our homelessness bill. What is it again?

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: It's on your agenda.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's on the agenda. If you refresh, it's on the agenda.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Oh, I just shut it so

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I could lift it up. That's okay. I'll look it up. Well, I'll look it up. Yeah. That's okay. You're gonna see it a lot on there. So, no worries.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: That's okay.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I don't have it memorized yet. And just as a reminder for people, all that means is that's a committee bill. So Doctor stands for drafting request in 2026, and then it has a number. And a lot of discussions happening, a lot of discussions, a lot of thinking, a lot of trying to find a path forward. A lot of listening to the testimony from yesterday that came from the advocates and providers and a lot of sleeplessness. And Eric's been doing a lot of thinking about this. We all have, but Eric has been doing an extra amount of thinking about this. And we've started talking about this sort of continuum of services and what would that look like. And I'm going to let Eric describe in a minute from his perspective what he's been trying to outline over the last twenty four hours. But what we are talking about is ending the separation of this thing that has been known as the GA hotel motel emergency housing, ending that separation from what all the rest of the services are provided under OEO. And talking about an overhaul of how we think about it. So I think everybody knows, because we've said it in here a lot, that the emergency housing under general assistance has been set up as a benefit. Like most of the things in GA, most of the other things are set up as benefits. That's how it was originally envisioned many, many decades ago. But what we know now is that that's not a successful way to necessarily help people transition to permanent housing. And so what we've been thinking about is how do we transition that out of ESD and have it be one component of a broader continuum that's managed in OEO so that everything is managed in OEO. And that we look at the use of levels, tiers, whatever you want to call them. But everything from at the least restrictive end of the continuum, which would be something like our emergency cold weather shelters, where if there's capacity, there's capacity. And as long as you are following the rules that that individual location is set up, then you are able to be there in and out of the cold, up through including use of hotels under certain circumstances, use of more formal shelters, use of informal mechanisms like neighbors helping neighbors, some like bit of help that could help somebody stay housed. So including prevention in that up through more formal shelters that we've seen that we have six forty nine beds of right now, and we're looking at some expansion. I don't know exactly how many beds because they haven't really said how many. Up through to permanent supportive housing for those people who need supportive housing and just permanent housing for those people who don't need the extra supports. So looking about that as being all under one umbrella.

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Do you need power? Nope. It won't let me in committee.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: I'm stealing it for him. Okay.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I was just about to turn it over to Eric, but I will when he comes back in. But it would require, I don't want people to sort of like get too open arms sitting around the outside, us to formally say that we're ending the GA emergency housing benefit. So, and in order for those resources to be working more towards the supportive housing, as well as emergency housing under this new umbrella of services at OEO. So now I'm going to turn it over to Eric to describe a little bit about what he's been working on. And in particular around this sort of notion of eligibility and all of that kind of stuff, because we heard some interesting discussion yesterday about how coordinated entry might serve as a method for looking at that.

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: I'm sorry, before you go to Eric, if I can just clarify. So you said we're gonna use the language that we're ending the hotel motel benefit. But it's just discussion at this Right, right, point in right. That's what's going to be upward discussion I and just want to clarify that that does not mean that we're going to stop using hotel motels Correct. As shelter. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I have a follow-up question on that. And moving it to OEO and within the budget, would we prescribe an amount that should be used for emergency housing purposes, just given the moving around of funds and what we experienced with HOP, where money that was intended was used elsewhere. I am just going to say, without prescriptive levels, this is a nonstarter for me.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. No, hopefully people have a sense of the issues we've had with implementation of what I would call legislative intent, that I am not in favor of leaving that up to the discretion of the department or agency of human services.

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: So, Eric. Thank you.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'm turning over to you. I'm just gonna caution you before you get going. That right hand of yours very often comes very close to hitting representatives The in the

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: other day, it's going like this, like this, and I was watching Brenda's eyes go up his hand.

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: Yeah. Actually watched, I reviewed the tape and I was like, wow.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I know. And I was like

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: So, just quickly, I'll give a brief overview.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And we don't have any legislative language. This, again, Eric has been thinking about this overnight. We both have. And trying to trying really to take into consideration the testimony that we've heard from all the parties, both this year and last year, about needing to have something that Vermonters understand. And I'm I'm still gonna go back to the statement that we had from a witness early on, which I think was was, Chad, around people are complex. But systems should be should not be the system should be more simple. And so now I'll be quiet, and I'll let you talk. Yeah.

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: Just share a little bit of rationale and then maybe just share a little bit more in regards to kind of where the perspective was. And I believe that we all want to achieve. We all want to make sure that we're providing the most equitable opportunity to those that are experiencing homelessness, our neighbors, our loved ones. We want to make sure we are providing the highest level of support and getting them into a system of care that's gonna produce better results than what we're already experiencing. Right now, we currently rely on the GA emergency housing benefit, particularly through hotel and motel placements, we know that. This is an outlier nationally, it's not producing the outcomes we need. Very few states, in fact, there are only eight states that still have their general assistance emergency housing benefit available, only eight states. And with very few states operating a GA style emergency housing program, those do like Vermont and Maine, we rank among the highest in the nation for homelessness per capita. And in fact, the numbers do show that I did see that the eight states that are still operating a GA benefit, seven out of the eight are in the top eight in homelessness. Is that a factor? No, that's not the direct factor. But again, I think it's something that should be acknowledged. By contrast, states that have moved away from GA housing and invested in coordinated entry, rapidly housing, permanent supportive housing have significant lower homelessness rates. Tells us something important, maintaining GA housing does not reduce homelessness. It often creates a cycle of replacements without a clear path to stability. Lamoille spends tens of millions annually on hotel rooms yet we continue to see rising homelessness. The structure of GA also adds complexity. As Chad was speaking about, systems should not be complex. The structured GA complexity, eligibility tiers, verification, fraud prevention, all tier to a benefit that was never designed to be a long term housing solution. The rationale for eliminating GA is pretty straightforward. First, it provides clarity. We eliminate the statutory obligations for emergency housing on the GA and replace it with a system focused on outcomes, not transactions. Second allows for a planned transition. During the phase out of hotels can be used under these expectations and actually are rolled into the piece of continuum of care. We do recognize that those that happen to be utilized. The benefit to that is that the individuals that are in the hotels now have direct access to coordinated entry, have access to the services of the navigators, access to the assessments, have access to other opportunities that are gonna move them out of and progress them out of the situation. Whereas we all recognize that we've just warehoused and being on that benefit, there is no obligation or responsibility on whether it's the state, the provider, the participant, this provides an opportunity to get them into the resources that are effective in work. The approach aligns Vermont with national best practices and creates those accountability mechanisms that we're talking about. It ensures that emergency shelter is a gateway to housing, not a dead end. It also positions us to leverage federal funding streams like HUD, Continuum of Care and Medicaid for supportive services, reducing state costs over time. More importantly, it moves us toward a system that actually reduces homelessness, rather than perpetuating it. If it's our legislative intent to stop investing in our hotels and build a sustainable housing response, the cleanest and most effective way to do so is through this method. This fill starts by acknowledging the reality Vermont's homelessness crisis is work and we all know that. We currently number one per capita, number four. So some of these major components, one, eliminating it, two, establishing that continuum of care, three, getting the appropriate funds mechanisms into place that support the continuum of care approach. And a quick nutshell and overview. GE program, which mainly, this bill just emphasizes more or less ending GA and investing into the proven strategies that we know are effective and work. That's pretty much the direction in this.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Do you talk a little bit about coordinated entry and using that as a method for prioritization?

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: Yep.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And eligibility,

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: There are many of us in this room that do operate within the HMIS coordinated entry system. And within that, they define prioritization, they define how we work with the most vulnerable, how the standards are expected, and that's pretty much what we are gonna operate on. And my student regards to the coordinated continuum of care. It means just that how it's laid out. Give me, let me jump around to.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I think while Eric's doing that, one of the things that a thought process is, wondering how much we rely on something that people put a lot of effort into. And I'm talking about coordinated entry, utilizing it for more than just data collection, frankly. And thinking about how And I wanna put a caveat in there, just so you know. We would need to give ourselves an out because we have no idea where the federal direction is heading. And so we would be clear about giving ourselves an out to do some state assessment or whatever. Right now, and then witnesses yesterday talked about you noticed when we were having conversation about utilizing coordinated entry for something that we already have. And then why would we develop separate prioritization? And that sort of got us to thinking about, well, why would we if we have a system that could be used that everybody is familiar with and that we actually want more people to be familiar with? So one of the things would be to require the Agency of Human Services to require this in all of their grant agreements with the community partners that exist out there so that the AAAs would have to participate, the designated and specialized service agencies would have to participate, parent child centers would have to participate. Realize that that means there's license restrictions and all of that kind of stuff. And those kind of details would have to be worked out. Trying to actually broaden the people who are responsible so people would have an in with people that they feel most comfortable with. Which was one

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: of the recommendations of the GA Emergency Housing Task Force a couple of years ago. Yeah.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And so when Eric's talking about accountability, he's really talking about accountability of the system to the people it's supposed to serve and not necessarily the other way around. And I think that's an important shift in what has been happening at the ground level. And we need to look very far. We can look in today's news to see how people who are homeless are treated in this state and the trauma that they experience day in and day out with things like needing medical care and not being able to get it and having So we need to change that, and we need to be the people who are responsible for setting an example to change how people who are homeless are treated in this state. And I think that by creating an expectation that we I would love if someday we didn't need to have a program for people who are homeless. But that's not the foreseeable future that we're looking at. And so creating a continuum of supports that people access depending upon where they are at in their lives. And it includes prevention and interventions and some of the low cost kinds of things all the way up to the higher cost things. I just want to be clear that the accountability is about our systems being accountable to the people that they're supposed to be serving.

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: In regards to the establishment of the statewide continuum of care and that investment, the program elements such as what we're already operating with housing navigation and case management, rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, non congregate shelter, the data systems, moving the things into levels, the continual care levels, starting with zero, which is prevention and diversion right there at the front door moving on through and investing into the emergency shelters and temporary housings. Their scopes are everything that we're already operating now. Congregate, non congregate locations, CV remains within the frame of the continuum, but how we respond to them within the HMIS system is a different element by remaining in there. Extreme weather responses, motel uses are still in play as in regards to the same level of services in regards to case management, in regards to housing navigation is available to the individuals that are in the hotel just as much as they are to the individuals that are going through coordinated entry. The rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, and it also opens the door for specialized paths, removing things and eliminating the benefit. And those specialized paths are everything from youth and young adults. The wonderful organizations of Evaluate Youth Services now are able to maybe maximize other levels of funding that weren't available by taking this approach. Families, veterans, DV survivors, reentry, it's bringing the entire system together, whether it's DOC, whether it's Dale. The continuum brings the entire system together as one unified working underneath a proven practice of success. The eligibility prioritization all aligned with HUD. Residency, it's irrelevant, irrelevant, you know, because we have diversion things and stuff like that. People are entering on up here, they're accessing coordinated entry. So there's, yeah, I don't know where I'm going with this, I'm trying.

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Stop that!

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: You're doing this all day.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: I believe

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: this is the path forward. I believe this, you know, knocks down a few barriers that we've been grappling with. The argument between GA emergency housing benefit and a continuum of care coordinated entry, we can have that one. And we to make the investment in the one that's gonna be proven to provide the outcomes that we're looking for.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, this is just discussion. Go ahead. Can you

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I'm sorry. Was very passionate. I don't actually really have a clue what you're suggesting. What are the things we got from her? But yeah, I know we don't have language, but just kind of bullet points, I think. More words like, just gets my mind spinning. So I'm just wondering, what are the actual highlights? What are the solutions, the things? How have we figured out the eligibility? So are we scrapping that? And that was one of the hard lines, my understanding, from the administration. So is that no longer We haven't had

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: any there's been no discussion with the administration about this.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Okay. So I guess You I'm just not aware

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: hearing all it first.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I'm hearing a lot of like, why? I'm wondering what are the things that you've kind of That

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: have been developed in the past twenty four hours.

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: All right. Here's Outline, in a nutshell, the objective. Eliminate general housing with a tiered continuum of care alignment system that emphasizes prevention, diversion, rehousing, and targeted stabilization using braided funding with a state or federal and standardized eligibility. The approach, eliminate GA, implement the three levels of services statewide to talk to form uniform residency and eligibility station, the standards, excuse me, require the HMIS participation established performance based contracting. So we're gonna use the coordinated entry system. The key outcomes, shorter unsheltered spells, faster access to permanent housing, reduced motels usage, improved equity and accountability. The guiding principles, a continuum of care, just as outlined, standardized eligibility and prioritization consistent with our definitions. Diversion burst to minimize shelter entries when safe and appropriate. Equity and civil rights compliance by the Fair Housing Act, ADA and title, title, title six. Data driven performances via the HMIS with transparent public reporting, braided funding to maximize federal leverage and minimize motel costs, local coordination through our continuum of So coordinated

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: to a few less words. Yeah, I just like digging in, I don't have all

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: of them require HMIS performance based contracting. Does that mean to you? Yeah, don't know

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: what it means yet either. But I think of the broad concept that I'd like the committee to be thinking about and to have some discussion about because I don't want Katie to we don't have any language because I haven't asked Katie to go ahead with it because I said she's had fits and starts about a a bunch of different things. And so I I said, like, well, I need to know if the committee's behind a concept like this. Because unless the committee's behind it, then I don't see a reason to ask her to put a lot of words to paper. That would need to come. I understand that. So I'm going to go to the left because I'm left handed. But if you're right handed, you can start at the right. Okay. So at the left handed, that we'd be talking in terms of the services. Talk about services first and then eligibility second. Services first would focus on prevention and intervention, diversion from homelessness, all the of full fund kinds of things that we see community partners using now. Just pointing out in the HUD world, diversion is also the things of services diverting somebody out of homelessness, like the rapid like, I've run a diversion project, and it's flexible funds, and this is a HUD one that is diverting folks from entering homelessness. But also, if

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: you have a household who they've got money, they found an apartment, they just need those moving costs, or they need help with utility deposits. So just in the broad sense, diversion isn't just from entering, it's also for those folks who can quickly exit. So

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I kind of think about rapid rehousing about that, but it doesn't matter. But we're talking all about the same thing. So we're talking about flexible resources to be used to quickly address an issue, whether it's preventing somebody from becoming homeless or quickly returning them short term. And short term, right, not long term. So it could be short term rental assistance. It could be deposits. It could be help building a ramp. Could be any variety of different things. So that I look at as sort of like the least intrusive, hopefully most successful and least costly way to address. And then as you move up the continuum, there would be access to, particularly in cold weather, there would still be access to emergency cold weather shelters that we have stood up where there's no barriers other than the number of places and fire safety, I guess, imposes barriers. So that as long as you're meeting the sort of rules of the place, where you're kind of minding your own business and you're not causing a ruckus or anything, you're able to get in out of cold weather, which I would want to set in statute somehow. Wouldn't want to minus 10 is too old, let's just put it that way. And then from there, there'd be the hopefully short term and more intermittent use of hotels as necessary, but they would still be part of the option. And then moving again then to the more formalized shelter services that we have currently and that are under development, including some specialized shelter thinking of a couple of the proposals that the department has put forward. And then the assisted transition. So if people need supports to move to whether it's service supported housing or family housing that doesn't need support other than perhaps rental assistance, particularly now with the lack of federal rental assistance that's available. Personally see that as a necessary thing. Otherwise, we're not gonna be moving to anybody. And then to independent or supported housing. And of course, one of the things that I think has been really telling about the data system that we currently have is the number of people who return to homelessness. To follow along after you're in housing is really important. So the follow along that we've seen from some of the folks like, I can't remember the name of the organization, but when Tom was here from London Dairy, and we've heard from End Homelessness Vermont, and we've heard from other Community Action, some of the other providers that you need that follow along services. So it does require an investment in case management at every level along the way. And it does involve requiring the agency of human services to engage all departments in doing sort of like what I was talking before. So that's kind of the continuum as sort of in my head, think

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: That's Eric is that an accurate interpretation. And then

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I think that we should be doing things like breaking out resources for different segments in terms of so we know what we have budgeted, it doesn't mean that we can't enable some flexibility about that. But I think that we should have expectations to know what is going to be spent in each one of these buckets. Then we get to eligibility. So I know that Anne has talked about this as a concept, and we've talked about this last year somewhat, but looking at, again, we don't want this durational residency thing to come up. But essentially saying, okay, you have a certain period of time, you come and you lack shelter. And I think even the department has talked about an intake shelter or something. And I think they talked about that a little bit, didn't you, at the committee that you co chaired? Do you talk about something that provides you shelter right away when you come? And then you figure out in those Triage. Yes, it's kind of like a triage space. You figure out in those few days, okay, where are you next going? And if you're agreeable to participating in, and it has to be based on people's choice, I get that. But if people don't choose to engage, then we have to think about what are the obligations. We have obligations as humans, but then we have obligations to taxpayers at the same time. But what I would focus on is that there's that that initial space where people are safe and out of the weather and able to have sort of a triage and sort of that initial quick assessment. And where you first start to develop that relationship with people who don't have relationships with any other part of the system. But there would be a requirement for a lead case manager. And that's not necessarily somebody in the housing system. It could be a designated agency. It could be a AAA. It could be a parent child center staffer, but there would have to be a requirement for that. And I do want us to investigate the use of coordinated entry and the plan, the housing plan aspect of that. Right now, it's a lot of data and it results in some prioritization for access to housing. I would love to youth

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: part of RIHMIS, or RIMS as we call it, we do a lot more outcomes tracking. How's your mental health when you start? How's your mental health? There is status updates and services they've received. So a lot of that is actually happening currently in HMIS. It's just the Family Youth Services Bureau kind of requires it, and they and HUD doesn't. It's already possible and being done in HMI. It's asked

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: to some places. Yeah. I mean, for that group of people. Yeah. So those are the kinds of things that we would

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I just can't show you, but it would be nice to have ICA in because they can do test profiles and you can go in and actually see what clarity looks like,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: which might be helpful. So, so we want things to obviously be more outcome based. And we hope that the investments that we make are resulting in improved well-being for people. That's what the ultimate goal is. And so I haven't addressed the sort of issue of timeframes. Right. And it's still Eric has some thoughts about that. I don't agree with his thoughts about that. And so that's it's Let's go back and let's just look at, we think that this is an approach that's worthy of starting to put down to paper? Let's go with Esme Cole. Absolutely. Then, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: First one, I'd be very curious how the conversation evolves with how we decide what case manager, who is designated to each individual, because of course, that's going be a huge test polling process, which actually is what leads to effective case management. We've gotten a ton of testimonies about the people who have been deemed to not be trying or not engaging. It turned out there was actually just more of a story. So that'll be a really interesting discussion. And in terms of HMIS, I'm curious, are we anticipating that we would be asking, for example, the parent child centers or the AAAs to be starting to use HMIS? Okay. I think that makes a whole lot of sense because everyone has their own isolated data in this totally for that.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And what we're saying is because this issue of homelessness is so entrenched and crosses over I mean, we saw the presentations from all of AHS. It crosses over every department. And so we have a system that is in use. We don't need to create a new system. We might need to expand how that one is used a little bit, but we want other people to be using it. And as Jubilee just said, that was one of the recommendations that came back from the group that spent the whole summer talking about these issues. Yeah. Yeah.

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: It's something, the continuum of care, it's literally saying, keep up the great work, keep doing what you're doing. Nobody's telling you how to go about doing it. We want to strengthen into this system that we know that works, different pathways to go to, nothing's telling anybody to change that. The only thing that we're saying is, let's remove the funding of a general assistance benefit and transfer that funding into a continuum of care that we know is a proven strategy to come out of homeless. That's pretty much what it's, that's what I'm proposing. We can't operate too. We gotta choose in the most effective choice to make as outlined with 42 other states moving away from that is let's invest into the strategies that we know will work.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: You have to hand up, do we have this discussion, people? A question. Let's five people talk at once, just chime Well,

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: so I like this approach. I think it makes a lot of, it's good to hear, good to hear sort of out of the box thinking. The kinds of questions that come to me, and I don't know if you want to even have them on the table yet, but I mean, the transition from where we are now to this is gonna take some time and what does that look like and who's involved in transitioning. And then once the system is set up, is it fully the responsibility of just OEO with our oversight or is there an oversight board that would sort of measure and sort of improve? Because constant, I mean, even when we get to a certain point, it strikes me that we'll need to continue improving or we would benefit from improving, and the more eyes we have on it, would make sense to me. I have one other question I can't remember right now. May I answer that?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's discussion, anybody can

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: Actually, the continuum of care is already in place and the mechanisms that we use already are in place. Is it robust? No, but that's where the investments get made to help build and strengthen the system that's already in place. Whether it's the data mechanisms through the HMIS, I'm in agreement Chair Wood in regards to that system at this time is mainly a crisis response system and doesn't have the mechanisms of prevention and retention that are available. I think another second piece that is kind of cloudy in the thing is that we have two continuances of care, that being the Chittenden County, continuing care, and then the statewide. I believe it would be much more effective if we just had the statewide continuum of care. That way we're all unified under one. So I see this as strengthening what we already have in place. We have the infrastructure to expand it and work with it. But the the main point is, I believe we've gotta make that decision to eliminate general assistance housing benefit that has no limited to no access to the continuum of care. And as that elimination is made, it doesn't mean we're eliminating the use of hotels. Those need to get regionally equitable across the state. And with that, we also what I mean by eliminating hotels, we do not have the capacity to eliminate every hotel room within the state. Now with that, though, we have to also provide those same provisions if they're working there, they should be held to the same standards that other organizations are held to. Like you said, it springs a continuum of care in the place.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: So the question then that comes to my mind is this, what we're talking about now is, and I appreciate it very much, is focused on the person in need, person that needs, the ability to build this continuum and have it work successfully across the state won't be able to be just focused on those people only. It's going be involving all the different organizations that are actually playing a part in this. And how are all those people going to get all those agencies and everything going to get more and more on the same page? I think that that's actually something that probably takes training and all that kind of stuff. Are we making provisions for that? Then I think about the towns, for instance, like, we live near Brattleboro, which is very heavily taxed by the current program. And so as our other towns, cities, municipalities. So are we thinking about ways we're going to be supporting them through this? Are there other considerations for that?

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: Right. Well, that comes down the line because I will speak very in-depth in regards to Rutland City. Yeah. You know? Yeah. 150 hotel rooms, people on GA benefit, the warehouse that I've forgotten about, that have limited services and horrible conditions. Period. Yeah. And I will ask anybody to dispute my claim right now in regards to that. I walk on in there and I still see what I see. No, I believe we did. If we're gonna utilize those locations, they're gonna maintain the same standards that way we can get the services on in there and then draw down on using hotels as the de facto for homelessness. That's the other thing that this stops. So yes, is hotel utilization gonna get down exponentially? Yes, it has to. It has to.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Where I, this gets back to the transition, where before I can even consider this, I need to know that information. Where are we gonna put those two fifty people, which we already know is not all of the people, people are still living on the streets. Are we gonna spend millions to build 3,000 units, shelter units? No. Exactly. So what are we People need to be able to exist somewhere. So if they don't have a shelter to exist in, they can't sleep outside, they'll get moved along, moved along. Where are we if we're not gonna provide the places, which obviously, we don't have the money, and I know that there are going to be people left out no matter what we decide to do, where are we going to allow people to exist when we have said, this is our line and we don't have any more funding, any more services? Where can those people go? What can they do? How can they meet their basic needs? Because this is what's been happening. We've been closing down the GA unit. Shockingly, homelessness keeps rising. It's going to. Where can these people live? Where can they sleep? Where can they maintain their activities of daily living? I struggle to wrap my head around backing any bill if we're not gonna address that fundamental problem first, because yeah, I mean, people are dying.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Another That's person my segue. My segue for my one time speech. I'm not going to repeat it, but it may take a little bit. I really hope that the more I listen, the more I could be more receptive to broader ideas. And to the contrary, the more I listen, the more locked in I get to the narrow view. I think the whole continuum of care we're talking about is the right ultimate thing. It's what we would want to do from where does a person get in out of the cold to permanent supported housing. But we have to deal in realities unless there might be people who would say, well, of course, that's what we have to do, but we know it's not reality. Unless we raise the big tax that was for resolving, addressing all aspects, and knowing that that's not likely to happen, then it becomes how much can you do with the money you have and what do you prioritize? Because we've got capacity issues at all levels and addressing them means money or prioritizing. And always say the obligation to humans. And what is the primary obligation to humans that we have as a society, regardless of what we would like to do more or expand that obligation? And I believe that it is creating a place of last resort for everyone and anyone who needs it. And I'm sorry that might be congregate shelters. I know nobody wants us, but you know what? If that's the baseline for everyone having access, and then we do everything we can to build beyond that. But the first priority, the first priority being that basic roof over the head available, not everybody's even gonna want it, but available. And at any time, not when it's 20 below or 10 below or even under the old adverse conditions. And I think that has to be the first level of investment. And I started thinking about other systems we have. We've got the system of addressing child abuse and neglect. And there are a lot of ways we'd like to enhance it and do better. And I think we want to enhance our foster care system. Kids get bounced around. We need more support for foster parents. We need to make it better for kids. But given the world of every piece of funding has limits, if we then had to say, well, we've got to work on priorities of where we invest. So let's look at the child abuse hotline and triage who's most vulnerable. Hello, I'm calling about my neighbor's kid being beaten. I see the broken bones. Well, how old is this child you're seeing? Well, five. Oh, Doesn't meet our priority category. That's got to be under one because that's clearly the most vulnerable. Our healthcare, our cardiac care response. We want healthcare for all. We want to be able to attract good cardiologists. We want to have surgical capacity. And we have priorities. How do we do that? Well, we probably need to triage who can come to the emergency room. That's kind of what we're saying and I don't think that's the way to do it. You know, we could do with our transportation system, right? A bridge collapses. Well, we've got to plan how to rebuild it. We've got to get transportation around the gap in the, you know, and we don't have the money to rescue the people whose cars fell off when the bridge collapsed, but we got to fix that bridge. So, and nothing in what we've talked about and even the governor's plan expanding shelters. Well, my definition of a shelter, emergency shelter means that basic roof. And that's not what we talk about in this committee most of the time when we talk about expanding shelter capacity. We're talking about what I would call emergency housing. It's longer, it's not just a bare roof over your head so you don't freeze to death in the cold, which we have people doing, which is unconscionable. So I can support the continuum of care we're talking about as long as it started with access to shelter with everyone. But then I can't support at all some of the priorities we're discussing, because I think that first one has to be fully addressed first.

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: So that's it, I'll

[Esme Cole (Member)]: shut up. I'm

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: thinking along the same lines as Anne, but what I kind of bump into is I agree that we need to have a place for everybody, and it needs to be bare bones, because we have limited resources. I think that I'm going agree enough on. What I bump up against is that there is no place for those people to go. I know. It's going to become a long term.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Well, it's the same when we talk about a triage thing, where you can talk about a short term triage, there's no one to treat. So you have to add and build and you got to do as much as you can increasing that.

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Mean, there's no easy solution, but then you're envisioning a segment of the population being in these congregate shelters that are not ideal for their well-being or for their success, right? Some people get stuck there till we build a better system. But it's better for them to be stuck there than stuck outside. That's a valid point.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Maybe to add on to the very emergency just roof overhead situation, an example in the past when the administration had set up emergency, I don't know what they can be called emergency, but those great shelters with outside contractors from North Carolina to staff it and all that. We're talking about use. Obviously, the percentage of people in need of shelter was not matching up with the amount of beds that they set up. So there's that middle ground piece of how do we, when we do invest money in these emergency type, just that first level, meeting a roof we had in whatever weather condition, you have the contrast there with, for example, Beth, I'm so sorry, her last name Beth. Beth Mayer. Beth and Mayer of the Church of Montpelier and meeting the volunteers who work at four ms. Some friends of mine volunteer there and it's like they're maxed out, right? So what is the difference there in the uptake of that kind of very specific emergency shelter? And it's like, I do think it's a level of community and trust.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: And so when we are considering Transportation. It's access. Access. It's rural areas that have nothing. I mean, I mean, somebody was telling me, said Northfield can't get to

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Montpelier or Barry. Totally. And so, Anne, of course, point needs to be, it's life. We need to sustain life, number one, obviously. But the barriers could be too large for whatever reason in people's decision making factors or not even a decision, just the reality, like why they aren't going to that kind of shelter, why they are going to a different kind shelter. So where we are making investments, being very strategic there about who's providing that

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: and giving them appropriate money to do so. I think one of the things, this comes back to what Zon was asking about before, but that I would see included in this, which might help a little bit with what you're talking about, Anne, because I agree with you about that, is grants to municipalities, because that's actually where it's going to happen at the municipal level. And that's a place where you can get to some of the more rural parts of the state that you're to not stand up a permanent shelter for somebody to access whenever they need it kind of thing. I would see, But prior to whatever response we come up with, that municipalities are included in that because they, around the state, we've heard from several of them here, but there's many more that we haven't heard from that are doing the same thing. And they're doing it on their own for the most part. And I think that they're going be the place that we're going to have to rely on for that basic level of buying something for people to get in out of the weather if they're so choosing to do that. So I see a bigger investment in municipalities than what currently exists out there now, which is not very much, to be honest. And that comes back to that means tough choices on the other, because if you have a bigger investment in one company, there's only one bullet to squeeze. Yeah, but I think you make a valid point about its life sustaining support. We can't force people to come in, but we have to give them the opportunity, give them the choice to do so and give the people the resources as best we can to assist them in providing that opportunity for people. And I hear you about transportation, but honestly, we're not gonna be able to solve that. No, I don't think this bill. But if

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: you have the municipal with that. Think that one helped with that. Yeah. Bringing a

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: new place to where people are. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I know. We

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: We we, said, well,

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: it didn't get used. Was out of town with the site. Well, The national guard warehouse, you know, that couldn't that was

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: a couple miles down the road to walk even from Downtown Muscular.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Of course, that was not logical. So

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: this is really the basic for just me, I think. Maybe I'll do all the same question. I hear the number that we have about 4,500 plus say to 5,000 homeless people in the state. I have no idea how many beds we have currently that could begin to take care of any of those people. I hear all these numbers, but I don't know if we know. We six

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: forty nine shelter beds right

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: now.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Yeah. Okay. But there are And

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: there's probably in terms of hotel usage, it fluctuates between in during the winter between, you know, 1,214 to 1,500.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Alright. So we have

[Esme Cole (Member)]: There's another 49

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: hotel beds that's an open shelving.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Wait, wait. 649 shelter beds?

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: That's the max. Yeah. Usable. Like, if you have

[Esme Cole (Member)]: a family shelter and you've got

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: 10 bedrooms, you may have six beds technically in a room, but it may just be a parent and a child.

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

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: understand. Yeah. No. I I understand. I know as soon as I ask that question, I'm gonna be thousand depends. Yeah. We're hooking on here.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And that and as Anne pointed out, that doesn't count the emergency cold weather stuff.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Was the idea. Mean, do we have any notion of how many beds are

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: around this?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I really don't know how

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: many number beds on those extreme, but I can't remember it.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: So I mean, I'm just wondering, the way my brain works is how far, to speak to your question, how far from 4,500 are we at being able to supply a bed to everyone who needs it? I don't know the answer to that. That to me would start to be a priority that we could maybe get our heads wrapped around. I don't know what it I don't even know what it looks like, but it's a it's a number. Right now, have no notion of what we need to do to get to what you're hoping for.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: If we're being generous, we're half of that now. If we're being generous. We're being generous.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: And there are some people, we know there are 4,500 homeless people, and we know there are some, 12, who don't want to be housed. Is that 200? I don't know that kind of thing. I mean, so maybe, I just don't know.

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: And how would would we say not what we just

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: that they're not, don't want to be housed. I think that framing it's more There's a range of Yeah. There's things going on that may housing a Yeah,

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: I'm saying. No, and I want to be completely generous here. Not trying to be

[Esme Cole (Member)]: But I think category folks will probably not be in the continuum of care network. So not counting them. There's also a

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: distinction in how in the definition itself of homeless when you're

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: trying to

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: count it because, you know, does that mean unsheltered homeless versus marginally sheltered but counted as homeless versus, you know, there's a lot of definitional categories of that that we haven't even looked at in a while.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Mean, what I like about this idea is conceptually, it's the right idea, I think. This continuum of care, conceptually the right idea. But where it will immediately start breaking down is when we immediately start leaving people out because we don't have the capacity to deal with it. Can we transition toward capacity? That's what I would be interested in learning about that.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I gotta be absolutely frank, and I think you all know this. The governor is not interested in increasing the amount of money in this area.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Understand that. I

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And I it's not that I agree with that, but it is it is sort of the it's the confines of what we're dealing with. Okay? So and in fact, he wants to reduce the amount that's going into this area. And so I think that I would love to be able to reduce the amount that's going into providing homelessness services, because that be not based on just a random idea that we should return Let's to

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: just reduce the number of beds.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Where we get to the value of sustaining human life for those people. And as Jubilee said, we have example after example of that the quote unquote system is failing people time and again. And so I just I feel like it's sort of an elephant on the table, is that I don't envision us being able to serve 5,000 people.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Yeah, I don't.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I I do envision us being able to expand our capacity for local communities to respond in in ways that can help people that don't feel like they have a place now. And I do envision us being able to provide more predictability to understand so we don't have to go through Human Services Board appeals every time you turn around because somebody's got a different definition of what a disability is

[Esme Cole (Member)]: or I

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: think we can improve on those things, and that makes the system simpler. And I think we can have something that will hopefully be purposefully leading to more permanent housing for people. But I think we also had to be realistic that there are aspects of our current environment at the federal level that are barriers to that right now. And the biggest one that I see right now is rental assistance. And we have a proposal before us about establishing a Vermont rental assistance program. And so how do we, think, which you, not we, you've said something about putting all these things together. But those are things that we have to consider. Otherwise, we're setting up this continuum and it has no place to go.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Exactly.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: But the one idea that I really happen to let, this concept that when we expand shelter beds or emergency housing, they'd be designed in mind as convertible,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: that idea of convertible. I mean, I think that's really key

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: in terms of efficiency of moving towards we want. How was

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: that plan from Champlain Housing Trust? We had talked about that a bit, especially with folks with intellectual disabilities and models. So I was happy to see that brought back. And what I was saying more, and we see it now, there is already a whole lot of people who are left out of our system. What we're also seeing on a federal level, and we're starting to see it, I believe, in the reaction and the way we are tackling issues in Vermont is this push to criminalize homelessness, especially folks who are unsheltered and homeless and maybe camping. We heard from the Department of Transportation and moving folks out of right away. And so in my head, really, when I was saying that is I know we're not even going to be able to build a roof, like a congregate shelter with the amount of money we have. That is not enough money to do even that. So figuring out a way where people can exist when there is not access to emergency shelters, a place they can camp, where they can exist without risking criminal penalties or tickets or things that lead onto a path of entry into that system, which is going to be a lot more expensive having all these people wind up in jail than figuring out these things now. That is The owner, rescue, self shelter comes even before Yeah, go and I just see this time and time again, we're not doing this work to prevent people from ending up in these really higher cost systems of care. And yes, in case you're wondering,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: there is a bill Downstairs.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Around camping. But it's something we have talked about in prior, not so much last year, but last biennium. And didn't quite ever get language. I don't

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'm want to read making a note about it.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Okay. It's just we do I don't want people I mean, I don't want us to have to have a camping policy or something like that. But I also don't want to see people winding up in jail, winding up in situations with police that is incredibly traumatic and just makes it even harder to engage in our systems. Happen. I don't think it will help anybody. And I don't think all of the things we're dealing with in Vermont with it would just compound them.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. So you have something to add

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: to I'm just gonna try to wrap

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: this up. So what I'm hearing, though, is where where I'm kinda little bit confused in what I'm hearing, if we put the money towards the GA benefit.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Who's talking about the GA benefit?

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Oh, he said that if we were to move Oh,

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: move it. I thought you said we were gonna put it. I'm sorry.

[Eric Maguire (Member)]: So what I'm actually hearing and what's being explained, it sounds like it's practical to say, take the money, eliminate the GA, and that bucket of money now goes into the continuum of care.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: But what I also hear, just so I wanna make sure that people understood that I heard them, was that that is I'm going to summarize. That's where I was headed. Was going to summarize. So to summarize this last hour of discussion is that in concept, that the notion of a continuum of care, recognizing opportunities for protection of people all over the state, wherever they are. And I just want to be forthright about it. I see that as grants to municipalities as a way to do it, as a logical way to do that, all the way through to supportive housing. That the notion of a continuum of care is something that people can get behind but not say yes to until we see the details of, are there limitations? How much are we going to put in each bucket? I do think that if we are going to move in that direction, I do not personally feel comfortable just saying, here's x number of millions and here's the continuum and you decide, DCF, where it's gonna go. That won't fly for me. That we would want to give direction. For our job. We would want to give direction about how much of appropriations, and we have base and we have one time, would go into the various levels of the continuum of care. And I fully understand that people can't get behind something like that until they know how much we'd be proposing to put into things like the emergency housing capacity for emergency shelter. I'm going like here because it's down here on this end of the continuum.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I would go one step further. I am not willing until I know what the number of folks who wind up unsheltered because of this looks like. Personally, after seeing the number of people who are dying, am not willing to create one more unsheltered household in Vermont. So I will not get on board. We talked a bit about that one to one yesterday. If we're losing a shelter, a hotel, if we're creating a not losing a hotel room, if there is not an equal shelter bed, I am not unsheltering anyone. I'm not sending a Vermonter to their deaths. So that's my red line.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. And I just want to be clear, we're not going to create seventeen fifteen hundred more shelter beds. Exactly. So I'm just saying I'm not going to sign on and support a bill. I would rather the status quo, which I also know will not happen. But that's my thing. I can't personally I understand. Continue to do that. I understand. Okay. So I'm going to try to work with Katie to put some words on paper around some of the concepts, but also some of the buckets that we're talking about. And tomorrow, we're we will have an opportunity to drill down with DCF around the money aspects of what's in the budget, what's in carry forward with DCF, both from 'twenty five and what they anticipate for 'twenty six, and really to ask some pointed questions about what their intent was. I think we should probably be clear to be on the record about what the intent is. Because I'll be honest, I don't find it clear in the, while the booklet of information is a lot of information, it is decidedly unclear about what their intent is. It's just a housing proposal is just little snippets of this is where we want to spend a bunch of money. Especially like, and where does it go from there? Yeah. The only reason that I know that their intent is to move backwards to the adverse weather conditions pre COVID, night to night, is because we asked that question when Eric and I met with him on Monday. Mean, that's not any place in any document that I've

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: read. I think that's physically contradictory.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So we have the opportunity to sort of weave what we're going to questions we'll ask tomorrow with further input into this. I'm not giving up on creating a more sustainable, responsive system. And I definitely hear where you're coming from. And I think that that needs to be taken into consideration in terms of how that transition works. And I'm not gonna be I mean, there are gonna be people leaving on April 1 or March 31, because that's the way the system is set up right now. But there isn't any way that I'm going to have our committees mark a system that goes back to one day you're in, the next day you're out, depending on if it's 31 degrees or 29 degrees. That's not what we're going to agree to.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Or minus nine versus nine is 10.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Exactly. There's always going to be cutoffs, they need to be ones that have a little bit more basis in rational human existence. If any human existence is rational. I don't know if that was the right. Okay, so folks, so for the next little over an hour, you have time to work on budget and thinking about the concepts that we just talked about. And I'm gonna spend a little time with Katie just trying to sort of think about stuff and think about how I can help direct so that you actually do have something to look on paper that you can respond and react to and change and modify. Okay. Thank you, Laurie. And so this will end live time for human services for today, and we'll be back tomorrow.