Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Good morning. Welcome back to House Human Services after a brief break. And welcome to the hot seat, Deputy Commissioner Gray. So we are going to move into economic services slash reach up and all of that. So one of our budget team members will be back shortly, but we want to keep things moving along. Welcome. All right, committee. Is First, offer you an opportunity if you have anything you want to open with or anything like that before we just delve into questions.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: No pressure. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm open to any questions that you have. I did introduce myself for the record before, but I have to do it again. We're in it, right?

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: Definitely. Thank you.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Thank you so much. So obviously, of the impacts of what we're seeing in terms of the administration's housing proposal have an impact, not only in OEO, but also in economic services. And I think that before we get into that, I think we'll talk a little bit about Reach Up first, if we could. So one of the things that we understood from reading this handy dandy book, and I wish you could hopefully explain it a little bit more, which is the elimination of the reach first. And what you said in the book was that essentially you felt like you were going to be able to incorporate those folks within the reach up appropriation. And I just want to make sure that that's what we're interpreting correctly. And then if we're not, you will let us know. Absolutely. And yes,

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: so the folks would still be eligible for regular reach out. It really just eliminates administrative burden. Reach First was a very underutilized program. I think we had on average 15 cases a month. So it was very small. And the same eligibility requirements to get them to Reach First exist for Reach Out. So those cases will be able to be on our regular Reach Up caseload. So I think maybe it would be helpful just if you said in a couple

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: of sentences what Reach First was intended to do and why it was separate to begin with so that we can understand what we're losing.

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Yeah, so

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: it was a short term kind of diversion program for people who had employment maybe or something else to go back to. So think unpaid family leave, for example, if someone didn't have family leave and didn't have any source of income, they could come into Reach first, knowing that they would be able to return to their employment after that point. And so the same thing, they will be able to access Reach Up for whatever duration it was that they needed. And so

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I'm trying to figure out how So how is that eligibility different? It seems like it was established for a particular purpose, but that's what So not only the people, but what was the particular purpose for which it was established? And I'm just going to warn you, we have a historian with us.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: Rachel, keep me honest. He does create my time.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I was there. You were there.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Okay. I was not.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Me either.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: I think there was an option for people, like if

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: you didn't need the monthly benefits, then you could get all four months at one time. So like if you really just needed more of like a lump sum to help get you through. But really it is that you can still get those payments. It will just be over the course of months. But I

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: think most people, and I would have to go back and see if we could look at this, is like, were people getting this upfront lump sum or were they just getting the monthly benefits, which is what people are accustomed to in the Reach Up program.

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: That's what kind of Not

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: in your understanding? Okay. Not

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: in terms of the purpose. And so

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: we're hearing you say that utilization has been down. But I know we ran into some disagreements last year about this program as well, where we made a concerted effort to continue it for at least one more year. And wasn't it

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: That was reach.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Oh, that was reach ahead. Yes, I Sorry. Didn't get that. Thank you. That was wrong one. There's so many reaches. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, Representative Bishop.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: So it's it's good to see that the cost will be can be absorbed. And but I guess there's the cost and then there's the program intentions. And it sounds like, again, within reach up generally, these needs can be met. But if the focus isn't there of having the Reach First program, will the intentions be delivered upon even if the money is there? Is that making sense? Just because the money is there, if the program isn't, I'm concerned whether the goals are still going to

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: be met in the same way.

[Molly Gray, Executive Director, Vermont Afghan Alliance]: So you still have access to

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: a case manager where we would be talking about what is your goal? And is it short term? Do you have something to go back to? So maybe we aren't helping remove a lot of the barriers that we are with our typical reach up case, but maybe you need lighter changes, but you still have access to the support services, which is something that is helpful to help people, like maybe have a car insurance payment that you aren't able to make because you don't have all of the income that you're

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: used to having. Is that

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: If someone was accessing Reach first, was it an easier entree into the system that's now going to be a little more complicated if you have to go through the full reach up process. Okay.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I'm sorry, go ahead. I was doing some technical things. Go ahead and then we'll go

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: to you. So I think what's important to understand to make sure that we're not losing something by ending it as a distinct program is what the purpose actually was. And the primary purpose had to do with avoiding a potential massive loss of federal funding. And in the process of creating a system to avoid that, we discovered we could do something really positive programmatically for the people. And if we're keeping the programmatic purpose, which it sounds like we may be, we need to make sure we're also not losing the protection against loss of federal funds that was the origin of both reach up and reach first. So just really briefly, at the time the Welfare Reform Act had gone through, and it had to do with work requirements and the percentage of people who needed to be on work requirements to avoid a significant federal penalty. And the biggest problem was the baseline for seeing if you were improving that was your current baseline. If we in Vermont, pick a number, were 90% effective in getting people to work, and other states were 50%, we had to go to 95% and they had to go to 55. And going from a high rate already to an even higher rate would be really, really difficult. So the way we develop to achieve it is say, we want people who are working to stay on DCF longer so that they can count as part of our work participation being on the program, and we want to keep people off who would not contribute to our work participation and yet still give them the help they need, and in fact, would reach forward, reach ahead, the actors, providing some really additional assistance that will help them exceed by providing a little bit of cash assistance after they would be off. So, the Reach First, getting them the cash assistance so they don't have to go on the program when they're not working because we get them back on track without getting them on the program so they don't reduce our work rate requirements and then reach ahead, improved our work rate requirements. So that was why it got developed on Valentine's Day of that year. Because it was the night of the Valentine's Day blizzard, and we had two consultants from Washington DC helping us who had flown in, and had to go back and the snow was dead. So we stayed till 11:00 or midnight in the snowstorm on everybody else who got home in order to, but that's an aside. So my concern, because it sounds like you're trying to be very attentive to still meeting those families' needs that we addressed when we created this program, but my concern is making sure that it does not harm us in terms of the importance of that work participation rate, I think in the latest administration and all, there's even more pressure on that, ensuring that work participation.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: So, yeah, so it was essentially how do we keep people out of our denominator. And most folks aren't

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: I don't know,

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: is that four years ago now? Maybe it's just three. We moved to more of an engagement model in reach up. So people actually meeting focus of the program. And most of our work participation is purchased through. But don't we need to be attentive to that for purposes of federal law and not losing federal funding? We might need to refocus under this current federal administration, which is something that we are keeping top of mind of we went in a direction, but is that a direction that we're going to be able to continue in the same manner that we are? Or are we going to have to become more of like we are counting what people doing in meeting hours, which is not what is happening currently. We're still working with people, but the counting of hours, like being in community service placements, that has moved away from. So it is definitely something that's top of mind, but I don't think because these are

[Rep. Esme Cole]: the 15 cases,

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: that that would be where our crocodilee lacked enough

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: in any direction. And I

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: would add to that that we have had an increase in our available funding for our maintenance of effort because of Act 76, which invested a lot of state funded dollars in eligible activities, which has allowed us and will allow us to buy down network participation. Well, what was Act 78? Thank you. 'seventy six. Yes, 'seventy six. So I think that there's also been that, which has been a bit of a confession release valve on the work participation rate.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: You.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: Looking at the absorption idea here with ReachFirst and the relative caseload adjustments for Reach Up in general. So that's an interesting, if we're planning to absorb more, but we're reducing caseload adjustments, I don't know.

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: I'd love more to the story there about why we're doing that. So we take a projection based on caseload, and we feel that our average has been 15 cases per month, which is a very small number. And we feel like we have the capacity within our projected caseload for reach out next year to absorb those 15 cases per month. So Reach Folks were included in that calculation? Yes. And with the cut of that program, would

[Rep. Esme Cole]: folks need to re enroll into the other version of Reach Up? Would there be an administrative aspect to that or

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: No, they automatically already roll into Reach Up seamlessly. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay. Any other questions on Reach Up? Go ahead,

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: Does Reach Up pay for car repairs too? We can.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: That is a support service that we can support people with.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, Representative Cole. Sure. One more question here, which has to do with the social security supports. So helping people apply for social security benefits. This kind of came up in Rutland's question earlier with the eligibility for other funds, blind and disabled funding source. And I mean, it's a problem that I see over and over and over again. Feel like we are sort of dealing with the consequences of people not even if they're duly owed SSI, SSDI, whatever barriers are existing for them to be able to go through that sometimes arduous process of acquiring those gets there. We need to kind of make up for that on the scene, whether it's in a GA hotel room, whether it's in retail, whether it's in wherever. So I am, at first glance, you're concerned that that's not something that's being utilized. I known about it when I was supporting certain individuals in the hotel rooms, that was exactly what they would have benefited from. So I do see this as could be a great cost savings for us to provide better supports. I'm just curious about the nature of what we are doing as an agency right now to support people in acquiring that SSI, SSDI, or are we just kind of telling people that that's just their job?

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: That service wasn't for those in the hotel program. It was for those in the PNI ongoing GA program. So that's why you're seeing that disconnect. And I think it is people needing to have case management. I oversaw the Social Security agreement many eons ago. One of the reason that initially we had success in GA, but it wasn't ever those in the hotel rooms because that was a very time limited. I think now you're just seeing people that are longer, But we had more success with those in reach of at the time because they had a case manager who was just like, we need to be able the social security specialist would say, we have to show that they aren't able to work. So can you set them up in a community service placement and see with support, are they able to be successful or they not be able to be successful? Can you help them in organizing their medical appointments? Whatever it was. Because these agreements are truly just folks that I think used to work for Social Security Department, now happen to work for the Vermont Association of Business and Industry Rehabilitation. Sorry, the audit always gets me vapor. And they worked in that system, so they know how to gather documentation. But we were finding that it still wasn't getting people to that landing spot, but it wasn't for those in the hotel program. I I know it's not helpful, but that is just the reality of where the resources were.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: So that, Rep. Zonn Cole, following up on that question, kind of overlays a lot of different programs around outreach to the public about potential eligibility for assistance, particularly in times when the cost of everything is increasing for all of us. That came up in SNAP. It's going to come up in Medicaid. It's all, I guess, a variety of different programs. And maybe you can describe for the programs that are in your responsibility, deputy commissioner, how do you extend outreach to the community sort of in general about the various types of assistance that they might receive from government on a short term or even sometimes a longer term basis?

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: Yeah, so in some instances, we have other organizations that we contract with. So I think of SNAP. We have SNAP outreach partners who, just because the federal law is a little bit tricky in terms of we can't look like we're recruiting people onto the program. But it's important that Vermonters understand what they may be eligible for. And so that's something that like hunger free Vermont, they focus that areas of aging. You never get that one. AAA. Yeah. Right, like we ask them to make sure that they're reaching their populations to share what they might be eligible for. I know this is something that has come up for our regular general assistance case, not those necessarily in the hotels, but the P and I, the personal needs. And so that is something where I have taken that feedback and we are working to get a website made that would be similar, more user friendly. I know everybody,

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: almost everybody, probably everyone in

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: this room goes and visits our hotel and motel data spreadsheet webpage. So how can I make sure that we have something that is similar? And then we do have for fuel assistance. Same thing, we have the community action agencies who are a partner there to help put out that information, what you might be eligible for, who else is already coming into their services, and they can explain that we have ongoing fuel assistance and that we have crisis fuel. So that's really how we do our outreach, but certainly open to thoughts of people. We go to fairs.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: When we're invited to

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: go to those, we have people here today about SNAP Awareness Day. There was. Yeah.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Great. So I guess, and I'll get to you just in a moment, Representative Steady. One of the questions, we have also been approached by sort of a coalition of community providers about a request to provide additional support for what they're calling ASSISTERS. I think I finally got the name right. It really cuts across multiple areas of the agency of human services, from health care to food and security to housing, the child care, a wide variety of different community partners. And was there any consideration, given the changing landscape of what federal requirements are now shifting to for current beneficiaries, whether additional support to those community partners would be beneficial for Vermonters.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: So I think we have engagement. And I will say, so I have the opportunity to thank you to our partners because this fall, we did need to have everybody to be able to make sure that we were getting word out. And I think we worked really well together doing that. So I'm not sure if there is an additional need or not. Think those would be ongoing conversations. Clearly, they're telling you that they are, but I haven't had the opportunity to look at who exactly is acting for that. And is it the same folks that we already have or not? Is it someone new? And so we would be asked to essentially shift that expertise elsewhere, which can also be tricky, especially during

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I think they're mostly all people that you know. All community partners that you're familiar with. Okay. So what I'm hearing you say is that you didn't identify that as a need. I mean, in terms of Additional community outreach during these changing times? Not additional. Okay. Thank you. Representative Steady.

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: When I worked for DCF, housing the homeless, I found this as a concern back then, and the people in the D. A. Motel program could apply for fuel assistance. Is this still happening?

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: It probably was the 21 benefit, which is phasing out. Federally, we aren't able to do that. And there is a statute that I can share if you're interested where we're essentially removing that just because we can't get that benefit. But they weren't actually getting a fuel assistance delivery benefit, if that is helpful. Like a $21 Which would help them get the max benefit in their three squares. Is that what it was? Yeah. I knew it was happening.

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: I just didn't know why. Thank you. You're welcome.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay, let's move to three squares. Speaking of which. So we see a caseload increase, which we had also seen in BAA. I think that speaks to the issue of food insecurity in our state. I have a quick question about Well, I think it's quick because I keep asking the question and eventually I really will get my hands around what is really the answer around the administrative aspect of it. And so I get that it's prorated, and I get that when I ask this question downstairs in appropriations that it really was considering a number of multiple elements that went into that calculation. Is that was that calculation being based upon well, I'm just somebody told me today that they thought that that was being based upon FY '24 administrative costs.

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: So three squares is is all benefits. I mean, in the admin.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: The ad you know what I'm talking about. The admin part. So you're talking about the I realize that the three whatever number it is, three twenty two is all the public benefit. Yeah, I'm talking about the administration.

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: So you're talking about the Fed fund to GF swap?

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: Yes.

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: So that was based on 25 actuals. So we ran the cost allocation program, which is a pretty complex program. And we saw how much was allocated to our SNAP admin in each of the buckets. And then we took half of that, and we said, well, we're going to need half of that as GF moving forward, at least. And so that was the only way we could really come up with to accurately project the impact moving forward. But it was based on FY25, which would have been the best information we Yeah.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: That's helpful. Does anybody have any other questions on ThreeSquaresMap? Okay. Yeah. Go ahead.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: I think just to draw attention to the fact that this 2,000,000 appropriation is strictly for elderly and disabled populations. This isn't even the general public talking about increased enrollment. This is a very specific program for that. Just to highlight again, the population that we're talking about.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: Yeah. Thank you.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay. Trying to make sure Did you do LIHEAP already? No. No? I think there's any big questions in LIHEAP. I'm avoiding the big ones.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: That works for me.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I know. I'm trying to get out of the miscellaneous ones first. Okay? Any questions about LIHEAP? I appreciate understanding that, you know, the money is flowing and people thank you for your efforts to make sure that people got it in anticipation of the federal funds coming in. We know that timing isn't always great, and winter Vermont comes whenever it wants to come. So thank you for your efforts in getting that out. Okay. Alright. Did I miss any of that? I mean, other than the obvious one that I'm gonna go to now, but Okay, I think I'm good. So moving to general assistance. We've actually already talked about the Social Security agreement cut and the impacts on that. But I didn't know if you had any additional questions that you wanted to ask about that.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Not right now. I I need to absorb that a bit.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: I think it's just, for some reason, the connection isn't happening. People who really need that support are not acquiring it. And I think we could even have people with more sustainable incomes that could perhaps stop needing shelter even because they had that connection in the first place. Anyway, that's just all. I think it's a preemptive measure to avoid the emergency situation.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I appreciate that, for sure. So in housing initiative and moving the 7,450,000 out of base into one time, does that leave anything in base in there? It

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: does leave a small amount.

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: So

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: we leave $2,700,000 in emergency housing in the base appropriation for hotels and administrative costs in state fiscal year '27.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Sorry, how much was that?

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: $2,700,000

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: You said hotel and administrative costs? Administrative meaning what? The positions needed to administer that. Eligibility. Discurbations. Is that the 21 positions? Yes, it's the 21 positions.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: Let me pull up my other sheet. Too many spreadsheets.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I'm impressed that you can locate

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: it, frankly.

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: So it is the Yeah, I'm not locating it. It's the problem. Okay, so what remains in there is just in GA, other than the positions in admin, is just for the contracted hotels, which is $550,000

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: So the other $2,000,000 or almost $2,000,000 is for admin? For the 21 physicians, correct. Can I ask a question? I'm not sure if we're strictly GA or we can talk about the housing initiative or

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: all into one, but we actually moved any We haven't done anything in OEO yet. Okay. Before I move to or that maybe you're you go ahead and answer your question. I'll ask Anthony. Go ahead.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Yeah. So I noticed this. I didn't realize that that was going to remain just most of the GA budget, That we're creating this proposal is we are for eligibility determination, which is a self imposed barrier that our state has made. And it's often we have these subpopulations more than we're allotting to entire populations. Just for example, sixty two percent of GA participants have a disability. Well, the word disability doesn't appear in your housing initiative plan at all. I looked. It's not in there. And I think that's a problem, considering sixty two percent of just the GA people in hotels have a disability. But we're allotting more to admin than where you're allowing for services. But now it makes a little more sense, I guess. So I guess my question is, how did you arrive at these population breakdowns? And how many the amount you're funding for each of these population breakdowns? And I guess I'd also like to know what other buckets of admin are there related to this housing initiative beyond the 21 new position? So I'm going to interrupt just for a second. So we'll get to

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: your question. I'm not sure we have a clear understanding about what these 21 positions do. Since they're in the GA, something's not computing for me that we would spend $2,100,000 administering a 500 So $50,000 I'm sure that that's not the case. If you could explain what these 21 positions do, that would be great. Yeah, there

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: were several misconceptions that I think we can clear up if we go through the slide presentation we have for the housing initiative.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: You have a new slide presentation for the housing initiative? Okay. Sure.

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: Did you have something

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: to add?

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: Yeah, I was just going to

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: add that while there's 550,000

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: in the base remaining, there is 15,000,000 in one time. So it would need to be administered also by staff. Yes, I get that. But not all of the 21 positions are doing eligibility too. There are other things in those 21 positions.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Great. So we look forward to seeing what that is.

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: Can we do that now? Yeah, sure. So just to address the first part of what you were saying is how did you come up with these numbers? I can tell you that the team has been working for at least a year looking at what the program looks like now, who's being served, and then working with providers in the community to understand where the gaps are, and then come up with a plan to address those gaps and work to create a system that's improved the people that are being served and the communities that they're being served in. So think Okay. So this additional shelter capacity, we want to build that. That's the 5,000,000 carryover plus 6,000,000. So it's 11,000,000 total. And we would be looking at building six additional shelters serving about two forty households. And they'd be regional based on needs. And we've figured 40 households served in each. And the programming is determined by the need of that specific area. And then mental health services would be provided in this shelter. So this something that we heard from the providers that they needed vetted workers in the shelters. So 250,000 would come out about $11,000,000

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: to provide those services. Would that be contracted with DMH or designated agencies? DMH can talk more about that, if that's their program. That's why Deputy Secretary LaFleur is here too, because it

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: is an agency wide initiative. So DMH could speak more to that, what it would look like.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: And when you say 40 households served in each, do you mean 40 households at one time? Do you mean that these sites would be large enough for 40 households? Yes. That's like a small hotel. Okay. No, you can We've kind of We we have ventured into your area, Lily. So, yeah, just for people who speak from the side, it's helpful if you just say your name, because not everybody who's in Zoom land can see us, especially with the PowerPoint up. So Lily, go ahead.

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Absolutely, my apologies. Lily is the director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. We do have some shelters of this crisis now. I'm happy to follow-up if that's helpful on more information about shelter capacity or size range, depending on what questions you have. But I know there's also a lot to get through here, but we do have some of that size.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay, thank you.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Go ahead, represent. So this my understanding, this is to build and to create the shelter. Do you have an estimate of what the ongoing, so next year or at the BAA, what it's going to cost to operate the shelters on an annual basis?

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Yeah, so we have a range. And again, with this proposal next year, we really want to do some targeted outreach. I think, again, a range for a base impact for shelter could be one to one point five million dollars for operating a year. Obviously, there's quite a bit of difference in terms of operating costs by region that we see. So again, just take that as a range for future based pressure.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: But I guess my question is, I know currently that shelters don't necessarily receive 100% of the funding necessary to operate a shelter. What would you be anticipating the pressure on the state general plan? Are you anticipating providing a 100% of the operating costs, I guess, to these new shelters, which is not customary for the current shelters as I understand it?

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: I think that would be the range that the administration is anticipating would be the base pressure would be?

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Between 1 and 1 and a half million for a shelter. And I realize this is in advance of actually doing this, but what would be your plan to do that? I'm not expecting a big windfall of additional federal funds to help us with this. Are you anticipating reducing current levels of service in other areas in order to accommodate up to 6 to $9,000,000?

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: How much to get ahead, but I don't know if Jennifer

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Yeah, the record Christopher McLoire,

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: Deputy Secretary, Agency of Payment Services. Certainly understand where you're going, and we are projecting a base pressure in fiscal year 'twenty eight, about $6,000,000 a little over that, for operating costs.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: But I think it's too early at this point to forecast what would potentially offset that. I appreciate that. Think that part of our concern arises from some of the decisions that were made in FY 'twenty six around transferring some supportive services from other HOF funding into other priorities. Understand that. At the same time, as a legislative body, we have to have some sense of what, if we agree to something like this, what we are committing ourselves to in the future. I think that's part of the reason for needing to have some sense of understanding. So I guess what it sounds like is, at the most, it would be between the 1 to 1 and a half million, but there might be offsetting costs. Is that fair?

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: I think it's too early to forecast fiscal year 'twenty at this point. Okay.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Any other questions on this slide?

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: Go ahead. Oh, just to clarify, this

[Rep. Esme Cole]: is the big overview, which includes your subsections of recovery, sheltered, and medically vulnerable. Okay, so this

[Anthony (DCF Budget/Finance Official)]: is the headline for the following slides. Okay. So the $6,000,000 is one time investment that's separate from the recovery shelters and the other components. This one of the first components. Oh, this separate.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: This is not the headline.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yeah, they're separate, and it's separate health care ones too.

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: Okay, thank you. So now we get into the special populations, one being recovery oriented

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: shelter.

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: So the 1,200,000.0 here is the maintenance of 12 bed shelter in Burlington with a targeted opening in March, and then investment in potential third recovery oriented shelter, which would be jointly administered by BDH. And so this

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: is face funding, I'm presuming, since it's ongoing. And this shelter is it says maintenance of 12. So is that something that's been developed recently? It says it's opening in March, done with f y $26 in the HOT program, I'm presuming, or one time there was some one time shelter development money, I recall, in our '26 budget. That's where part of this win. Okay. And who is operating this?

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Shannon Valley Office of Economic Opportunities.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: Yes, but do we have any idea what

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: the third one, what the capacity will be? Not at this time, and we're working with the health department to assess community readiness and what would be a good location. This model really works when you have a community that has the population to meet the need, because it is more of a focused program and also other shelter capacities so that there can be a nice referral in and then if necessary, a referral out as opposed to them having some of the unsheltered situations. We're working with the health department to make sure it's in a community where it will be utilized and there's readiness.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: I just have a question about

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: the second bullet, just phrasing the investment in Potential Third jointly with the Vermont Department of Health. Are they investing anything from there? It's all one budget. But is there additional money in another budget presentation anywhere? Or is this 1,200,000.0 what's being directed for those? Okay, for both

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: those students. And so how much of the 1.2 is operations and how much of it is investment?

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: The majority is operations. I was on twothree and threefour is operations.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Would you be able to get us the actual kind of amounts or what your approximately? We can

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: share the first budget.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yeah, and

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: I know things cost change a

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: little bit, it's not firm.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: It's next month, though. It should be pretty nailed down.

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Have, again, we have those solid numbers from the 300 units under current constraints that we can share.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: And so is this anticipated to provide 100% of the operating costs or a portion of the operating costs?

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: I think this was for the housing opportunity grant program, along with many state funded programs, there's an annual procurement process and review. I think this is anticipated to cover a bulk of the costs. I think as the dynamic was shared earlier, sometimes we go through a negotiation process when we receive grants, if people are asking for things that's gone out of scope or seem beyond the board. So I don't want

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: over. But it's not 50% of the cost that you're expecting? Yes. Okay. I guess what I'm trying to understand and not, obviously not the legislature is not part of the housing opportunity Program RFP and grant process. So I only know from what we hear from witnesses. So I know difference, I guess. It appears to be. I guess what I'm trying to sorry. I'm not being very clear in my own mind. But what I am wondering is if we are setting the program up for additional requests from other shelters that do not receive this type and level of funding. So they receive much less funding. And I have a concern that we might be setting ourselves up for this inequitable balance about shelter operations is my concern. I'm seeing your head nod, so I think it seems like there's So are you providing this level of operational funding because you are trying to incentivize folks to develop the shelters or because you're you're saying, you know, really need to do this and, you know, well, I guess that's an incentive. I'm just trying to figure out what the thinking is behind what has traditionally been done around shelters. And then now, because again, this is setting us up for additional legislative appropriation requests that we should understand.

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Yeah, I think the administration shares a commitment to address these needs. And over the past few years, we have worked with our community providers to bring on significant new capacity relatively quickly, we need to make sure that they have operating costs. And I think for a lot of nonprofits, it's challenging to switch some of their private fundraising or ultimate grant applications as quickly as we've got on these new projects. And I think that's where we do see a little bit of a difference between maybe some historical projects that just, over the years have had a more diverse funding stream. So I think that is an observation of, to respond to the urgency, the state becomes probably more robust to help them get up and running. They could be even more responsive than maybe the ability to so the ability to go after other federal and national funding sources. So that is a new dynamic of the past few years. We shared that opportunity.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Go ahead.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: Is that $1,200,000 the request made by BDH, the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee.

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Yeah. No, that this year, we have received opioid settlement funds to support shelters across the state as they respond to what they see in shelters regarding the impacts of substance use disorder. So that covers again, all shelters across the the state were able to apply for those funds. Staff training dollars, additional staff supplies, for instance, sometimes you see the need for more first aid supplies. Also, one time supplies or investments. So for instance, overdose prevention sensors. So these are, for instance, in bathrooms where if people are not moving, that would sound an alarm and create a staff protocol response. So that is a separate statewide effort that any of our shelters can apply for, fighting to support those types of activities.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: So again, this $1,200,000 has nothing to do with the Vermont Department of Health's request for opiate settlement monies for start up costs to do recovery beds and investments in that. Okay, thank you.

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: Go ahead.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: I think I missed something while I was taking my making notes here. There's talk of 12 bed shelter in Burlington, and the next little boy refers to a third recovery shelter. Where's the second one?

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: First one.

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Thank you. Great question. We're jump to the second one. Burlington's the second one. The first one currently exists, is administered by Midsmarine Haven here in Central Vermont. And in South Barrie, I think, technically, is where the address is. So that's been operating for a few years now with joint support between our office and the health department. And that's what has been tied to, Okay, this just seems to be working well. Where can we expand this model for a long time to get these populations and the other shelter capacity is such a natural fit, and we were able to work with local providers. Hopefully, they'll be up and running.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: How many beds in

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: In Barrie, 13.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Thank you.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yep. Thank you. Another question, because this is operations funds at this point in time, most of it anyways. On the previous slide when we were talking about the other new proposed shelters, we were talking about operational expenses in the out year of 1 to 1 and a half million for 40 beds per facility, and we're looking at roughly the same amount for a 12 bed shelter. I'm just trying to figure out. And I realize that there's some specialized supports for folks with substance use disorder, but that's also addressed in the previous slide with that 250,000. So I'm I'm just trying you know, there's there's a big differential between 40 beds and 12 beds for roughly the same amount of money operationally that, you were talking about. Can you explain that?

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Yeah, so again, I think the 112.5 is an average across I think we see tremendous operating cost of trash sales between Chin County and other parts of the state.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Mostly in real estate and salaries or?

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Those would be the two primary drivers.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Any other questions on this slide?

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: Or Executive Lohme, any questions?

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: I think that I have a general question, not about this, but just what I'm not really understanding, there was mention of CDOEO, where community providers come in and what work is actually being made. Is it really are we going to draw on community providers to actually run these shelters or is it are they is this a state are these state run shelters and will you be contracting out to new folks for

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: that? So is that Going back to the prior slide or this slide in particular? No, I'm just talking about all the How different about prior, the community based providers that we have, and not stay operated.

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: Okay, so now the next specialized population would be the medically vulnerable and that's 2,600,000. This would be Dale administered program And it may serve approximately 60 people with case management, personal care, skilled nursing. And the shelter providers stress this is a significant need in the system.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Go ahead, Tina. I'm just wondering your language may serve. I just noted others are more specific on how many beds. Is that what you hope? Or is it 60 beds for medically? I was trying to be approximate, max. Approximate, Yeah. I

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: was trying to be consistent.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Represent Noyes. Do you know

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: who will be providing that case management?

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: I would say I would like our Dale partners to talk about Fair enough.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I think you can anticipate that would be the AAAs.

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Go ahead. The 2.6 is for development and operation, like is it startup all in, or is this just operations?

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: I would again ask you to talk to our Dale partners about that. Actually,

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: let me jump in. For this one, remember we talked last week about a transition, transition from where we are to where we're going. So we anticipate this will be part of the transition. So the medically vulnerable shelters that were mentioned here, and was certainly highlighted by other shelter providers is in need, at least specialized populations, they need

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: some clinical service.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: This is where the final destination where we would like to go. There is likely a transition point, an interim transition point, where we are still leveraging and utilizing the hotels and motels in a slightly different way for this population while we bring up these shelters. So I just want to be upfront about that, that we're anticipating leapfrogging to that pinpoint. There's probably a transition. Also in the budget, have to be about 60 people would be served in that transition period, the hotel and motel, with services. So when we talk about our shelters and shelter like options, it is all with services.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I have a question particularly around this group of individuals and whether or not there's any possibility for federal receipts under global commitment, given the medical and health care related items that we continually hear, as you do, that folks are needing? Has that been investigated at all? Do you know?

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: Was just going to I mean, I don't know if Commissioner Hubbard, think Doctor. Galloille is maybe more poised to answer some of direct questions. But I do believe Galloille is a firm combination of general lending and leveraging Medicaid and other services. So again, I think that dialysis should be able to get in the weeds with you.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Go ahead, representative.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Do you have a definition of medically vulnerable you're operating under for this vision? Dale does have that, and

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: I believe last week they shared that so we can make sure

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Yeah, yeah, sorry. That would be great. Thank you.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: And Representative Noyes, just so we'll do some follow-up with Dale as well around these questions. One of my overall questions is these, again, is picking up on what representative Garofano said. Is it development? Is it operations? Is it some combination? And deputy secretary talked about the transition period. And so would you be utilizing these funds flexibly, I guess I would ask, since you only have well, you do have one time dollars in GA as well. Okay, never mind that part of the question. I just answered it myself. So these appear to be full year dollar amounts. So do you have, I guess, what I would say is a transition plan about when you might expect these? Because I think there's probably an expectation that there might be some partial year funding, given that we expect transitions into some of these things.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: We do talk about the timing around that. If they fully transfer, I think the team is probably a little more optimistic that they'll come online a little sooner than I am. So at some point, state fiscal year 'twenty seven, but I think it's probably tail end, state fiscal year 'twenty seven that we would see them come online. And in the meantime, again, hotel motel in a different way to bring in services for this population. To really treat it more like a shelter, it's not going to be perfect, but provide more services in the short term while we get to this longer term solution. Thank you. Go

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: ahead, I'll point out, New York State just mandated that all hotels used as shelter for emergency housing, they have provide to the same services that are provided in shelters. Well,

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: that's where we're headed. It's a trend. It's where we're headed. Okay. Thank you very much, Commissioner.

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: Okay. And then the next population is family sheltering, and that's 7,900,000. And we would use family designated hotels across seven district offices, approximately two forty rooms. So this is where some of those positions that you were talking about, the 21 positions, would be in these hotels to ensure that the families are engaging in services and have access to services. They could leverage services from a hire ability, DOL, parent child centers, Vermont Chronic Care Initiative, DAs and SUD providers, substance use disorder providers. There would be authorized states based on need and case plan, and there would be housing navigators that supported the families. So that's $876,000 would be granted out to community providers for housing navigation services. And the

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: motel coordinator would act as liaisons between families and other providers, as well as ensure that engagement and services are happening. And so of this 7.9, I heard you say $8.76 would go out to community providers. And then you said this is also the place where some of the staff. So I'm still not quite understanding where these 21 staff positions like. So what exactly are they going to be doing with folks?

[Deputy Secretary LaFleur, Agency of Human Services]: Don't So we know at the hotels and the motels now, they're not necessarily engaging in services or accessing services. And we talked before this about how can we get the word out. So those physicians would be able to do that. They work with the families to ensure that there's a case plan, that they're engaging in services, that they have access, they're aware of services that are available. And we talked about off hours, them being on off hours in case the family members worked. So

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I have to say, this seems like duplication of what our community providers are supposed to be doing. So let me just ask another question. Would there be an expectation that state staff use the HMIS system that we currently have so that there's an integration of supports for those folks?

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: So two observations. One, I think that this is a recognition that we have limited capacity in terms of housing navigation currently around the state. And when the Emergency Rental Assistance Program federal funding ended last summer, some of the hotel specific positions were lost and not being able to. So that's

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I'm not really questioning the 876,000. I'm talking about the 21 positions. I

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: think that that's something that we can consider in terms of the overlap field. I think each of my asks whether or it would

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: be a consultant for the topic.

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: So I think they can talk internally and see, there be, for instance, talk associated with doing that? I think what's challenging now and again, Deputy Commissioner Greg can step in, but just some of the logistics on the ground at the hotels and having additional presence there, not the housing navigator, but maybe going in and out, not necessarily always meeting the hotel staff. Sometimes, hotels and mortals are not providing spaces for providers to meet with. And so a little bit more of infrastructure support to help ensure operations.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: So I guess I'd be presuming, since you'd be entering into different relationships with these hotels, that there would be some sort of, I don't know if it'd be a grant agreement, but some sort of MOU with the hotels, like they actually tried working on a few years ago with BGS involvement, that would mandate some of those things, availability of space and things like that. Would you and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be directing this to Deputy Commissioner Gray or whomever, but would you consider these positions to be state level case management positions? Would they have a caseload per se? It

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: would

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: be who was at the hotel, or maybe there would be a couple hotels depending on how many people were there. I'm

[Rep. Esme Cole]: trying to think, it's kind

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: of providing that infrastructure, right? Like what we know, there's infrastructure to a shelter, right? Like somebody, there's house rules, those don't exist in the hotel that we, right? So how do we do that? Are there other things that they're identifying that people need, other services that we need to bring in? And some looking at the model of where did that work well when we had the blackberry shelter, right? Like how are we making sure that the service that people are getting connected with, they need help determining what the transportation is like. So in fact, when Katie Parker is saying it's a dorm parent, an RA, someone with helping you come through the system that exists, but also recognizing that we need people the expertise of you're going to help them specifically in the past, and that's the housing navigators. These folks are more of like, how are we making sure that we have an environment that is a good environment for everybody to be there, and making sure that the services are connected. Because I think that is also something that we've heard is, well, wait, we're encouraging people that they haven't been connected to services. Yeah, there are options for people to not be able to do this. Think it's also probably ensuring have something changed and can we help them? It's our division, economic services could also go and be, but not that in terms of eligibility specialists. So maybe you didn't have, you were pregnant, and now you need to add a child. Can we bring that service to you to add the child rather than you having to go into our office?

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: So it sounds like you would anticipate assigning people to particular hotel locations, one or two hotels or whatever, depending upon how many people were there. Go ahead, Representative Maguire.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: Yeah, I did. I know we had spoken about this. As I see what the barrier is, the GA emergency housing and coordinated entry, they operate out of different philosophies and infrastructures. We're attempting to try to maintain both of them. We need to make a decision. Because I would I see from there, those 21 positions is to continue operating a GA housing benefit where it's a different Do people get where I'm kind of going with this?

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I understand. And I'm seeing Deputy Commissioner Gray chomping at the bit back there. Yeah, go ahead.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: I think when we're talking about the 21 physician, there is still So we still get fair hearing requests. So we have fair hearing specialists that do that. We have field care. We have a whole infrastructure that we've had to have to maintain the path of over 1,200 rooms at present right now to do this. And so that is as we move away from using hotels the way that we're using them now, I think we could see those positions know, usually in a different way, such as this, right? Like currently EST does not have, with exceptions for breach of case managers, people who are going into hotels routinely, because that isn't our scope. Our scope was to assist people getting rooms, that is what we've been asked to do, but we've also, like I'm hearing a lot of the theater from everyone that they want more support in the hotels and so this is our way of being able to do a part of that, in particular with the vulnerable population.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Yeah,

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: just want to make sure that we are able to get to the rest of the slides because we only have about twenty minutes.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: But again, I just want to put this up on everybody's radar. We're still utilizing and competing with two systems to address homelessness. Either if we're gonna utilize hotels, people want benefits, we gotta make sure that those individuals are in coordinated entry no matter what. And I believe that can get framed that way. I understand we're still gonna have to utilize hotels for capacity purposes. But to be able to have those same services that are being expressed that people receive in coordinated entry, the best and most effective approach would be to make sure they are engaged and put into coordinated entry.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay, I'm sorry. I just need to do a little schedule adjustment. So our friends from three pardon me? Yeah. I understand that. Our our friends from three squares and we have community members. This is my fault because I forgot that piece of it, and I was thinking we had till noon. To be honest, I feel like we have a lot of stuff. I don't want to flip through the Revit because there's still a lot of stuff on this housing initiative that and we probably were gonna ask you to come back anyway on the housing initiative specifically. And so I think I need to do that now at this point in time, because there's people who came from all over the state today. And don't want to shortchange this because it's a big investment, it's an important step, and we want to make sure that we've built sufficient time to it. So I don't want to skip through it. So what I do want to do is to thank you all for your time and attention today and to apologize for my lack of schedule maintenance. We knew we were going to have a lot of questions and thought that two hours would be enough, but apparently it wasn't. So thank you very much. We'll look forward to an additional invitation from us in the very near future. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lori. We'll probably not gonna have Eric

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: go back. Let me get

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: through the last one. Go ahead. Yeah.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: Let me find out.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: You asked him that question already. They said no, but go ask it again. Ask him how much it is, because I think it's more like $800,000 van. Come on in, come on in folks, my apologies. I

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: have to walk all the way to the pavilion.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: For outdoor recreation. Yes, I'm supposed to be there too, but that's not enough. Okay. Whatever you can, why don't you stay and then, you know, to allow you time in another ten minutes. Yeah. Whatever you feel comfortable with.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: Guess the white hat. Okay. Gotcha. I wasn't being I know. I know.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: On in, folks. Come on in.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: So I'm not changing my ins.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Good morning, Again, my apologies for lack of adhering to the schedule. I appreciate y'all being So members, is I don't want to call it hunger day, but I'm going to call it food security day. And so we have folks who've come from all over the state to share the important information about food insecurity in Vermont and what that means to people. So because we are short on time, I'm just going to say welcome and introduce yourselves. Normally, we'd go around the room and introduce everybody, but I'm just going say welcome and please introduce yourself for the record. I appreciate you being here.

[Ivy Eng, Director of Policy & Advocacy, Hunger Free Vermont]: Thank you so much, Chair Wood and committee members for your time. For the record, my name is Ivy Ejig, and I live in Burlington. I'm the Director of Policy and Advocacy at Hungerford, Vermont. Would you like me to just begin? Yes. Okay, great. Great. So as Cher Wood said, today is Three Sports Vermont Awareness Day or Food Security Day, which I love. And we are all here to really acknowledge this essential program and to ask for your support on requests that together will ensure the best outcomes for people in Vermont, for our communities, for our farmers, and for our economy. I don't need to introduce this program to any of you on this committee, but let me just present us to the critical impact ThreeSquares Vermont has on our communities statewide. ThreeSquares Vermont supports nearly 10% of Vermonters with essential funds for groceries, and more than $12,000,000 are issued to ThreeSquare Vermont households every single month, making this an effective food security and economic stimulus program. We've heard many ThreeSquare Vermont participants refer to this program as a lifeline, and in many cases, the only reason they're able to afford groceries. And as someone who was raised by a loving and a hardworking single dad whose monthly grocery budget was our SNAP benefit, I know firsthand the power of SNAP to help families get by, to catch up while still experiencing the joy of a shared meal. I would not be where I am without SNAP. Despite harmful federal changes to this program, which as you know, went into effect in October 2025, FreeSports Vermont remains our state's most effective and efficient program to reduce hunger and poverty. I know you are very familiar with the eligibility and funding changes passed in HR1. Compounding these complex eligibility changes that Vermont had to implement in a fast moving and challenging landscape, Vermont faces additional costs to administer ThreeScores Vermont beginning in October 2026. We, Hunger Free Vermont, has been closely following the state's projections regarding increased SNAP administrative costs resulting from reduced federal funding. We are glad that the administration included funding for this and urge the legislature to continue to pay close attention to full funding needed to make sure we keep this critical food security and economic development program thriving in our state. Further, it is critical for Vermont to ensure that all eligible people are able to stay enrolled or be enrolled in ThreeSquares Vermont. And we note with concern the change in enrollment over the last year, where approximately 4,000 folks are no longer enrolled. And this decrease is more than double the reduction seen from the prior year, and which far outpaces those who lost eligibility in October 2025 because of federal changes. These trends underscore the importance of ensuring administrative funding is sufficient to not only fill in federal gaps, but to actually support access, retention, and program integrity. Not only that, these trends underscore the importance of investing in our state's existing network of benefit assisters embedded in communities across Vermont, a number of whom are also impacted by losses in federal funding. Benefit assisters help people decode complex application questions, understand what documentation is needed to verify their information, and what to expect in the mandatory interview. The importance of this service couldn't be more apparent than when we see major changes in eligibility, like with HR1. Having Benefit Assisters at a person's regular local trusted service provider organization will improve the chance that everyone who is eligible for ThreeScores Vermont will get the benefits they're entitled to. We already have a very strong network of expert benefit assisters, and Vermont is often lifted up as a model for other states. These trained benefit assisters not only ensure a unified understanding of ThreeScores Vermont across the state, but actually support our state agency by helping ensure applications are completed accurately. And that reduces administrative burden for our state, and it also supports a low payment error rate. Benefit Assisters improve the human experience of navigating paperwork, phone calls, and documents to asset basic needs supports like food. And it really can't be overstated that benefit assisters are responding now to many complex program changes and greater needs. Investing in this existing network of benefit assisters at trusted organizations across Vermont will have a multiplier effect by helping eligible people to continue receiving ThreeSquares Vermont and keeping those federal dollars flowing to our grocers, our farmers, and our overall economy. We all want to ensure the best possible outcomes for everyone living in Vermont, and food security we know is a policy choice. And we also know that ThreeScores Vermont is an essential part of the pathway to supporting households while we work together to achieve food security for all. There are policy choices in front of you this year that will go far in ensuring the best outcomes for Vermonters in this moment. And the first is to please fully fund the administrative costs needed for state fiscal year twenty seven to counter federal funding changes and keep Three Squares Vermont available and accessible to people in Vermont. And second, to please support the appropriation of $4,950,000 in fiscal year twenty twenty seven for benefit assisters for SNAP and Medicaid. Thank you very much.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Thank you. Thank you very much. And as you said, we are pretty familiar with three squares in here and appreciate your very specific recommendations to us. And are you Catherine? I am. Well, welcome. Thank you. Welcome. So we're happy to have you here today. The floor is yours.

[Ivy Eng, Director of Policy & Advocacy, Hunger Free Vermont]: We're gonna do some musical chair survey, I'm sure.

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: Catherine, I'm not being rude, I just had a punishment. That's all fine. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Afternoon, other committee members, I hope you're able to stay a few minutes into the lunch hour, if that's okay. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, Katherine.

[Tatiana Cloud (Public Witness)]: I just want to say thank you on this beautiful, beautiful day. My name is Tatiana Cloud, and I live in South Burlington, Vermont, with my younger friend and daughter, who's sitting on, my driver.

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: My

[Tatiana Cloud (Public Witness)]: granddaughter is 16 years old, and we are here to celebrate the importance of Three Squares Vermont, and to ask you to fund the necessary administration costs to operate Three Squares in our state for the state fiscal year 2027 to counter federal funding changes. Full funding for Three Squares administration is critical to keep this program available for all who are eligible in Vermont. If you can't hear me, let me know.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: You're doing fine.

[Tatiana Cloud (Public Witness)]: As a retiree on a limited fixed income, after working many years teaching, I now take care of my young grandchild, up full time. And it's certainly a struggle financially. The struggle is real. I love my granddaughter dearly and will try my very best to support her to do well in school so that she can one day contribute productively to our economy and Maple community. She is a wonderful, kind, thoughtful, and polite young girl who is a huge help, grandma. I patiently helped her get her driver's license last February. Now she does most of our errand except groceries and medicine. Aroha has been an honors student for three years at South Wilmington High School after spending many years in China with Grandma. She takes Chinese lessons every Friday evening and participates in track and field cross country and is an active member of the Civil Air Patrol at the Birmingham Airport. She aspires to be a pilot, So she can still drive around the place.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Each

[Tatiana Cloud (Public Witness)]: month, I prioritize what I absolutely need to pay, be it dental bills, dental insurance, medicine, medical insurance medical bills, car insurance, vehicle registration fee, state vehicle inspection, gas, repairs for cars, house repairs, house fuel, condominium dues, electricity, telephone, Wi Fi and food. Every year, the amount of my social security check goes up, a small percentage, but unfortunately, our household expenses often exceed that increase, unfortunately. The temperature in my home is always kept at 57 degrees, which is quite comfortable. In China, I had no heat in my classrooms. You just learn to dress properly. We close the bedroom doors during the day to keep expenses to a minimum. We turn our lights on after the sun goes down and shut off breakers at the main box for unused appliances. We struggle each month deciding what I can go without. We've become very conservative. We buy used clothing, used shoes and used household items that we need. I cook from scratch. I do not buy, prepare or package food, and it is very expensive here in America. I sew, mend or don torn or broken items, which I enjoy. I do my own household repairs, including plumbing, electrical, carpentry, painting,

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: and

[Tatiana Cloud (Public Witness)]: I still can do some car repairs. I was able to troubleshoot my thirteen year old Avano refrigerator, and it stopped keeping our food code on Google. I found the part on Amazon for $29 It took me less than one hour to replace it and to vacuum the couriers in the back. I did need a little help pushing it back in. It was back up and running within two hours, all skills that I learned from my wonderful dad who could fix anything. Receiving Three Squares has been a tremendous help to us. We can buy fresh, healthy food, yogurt, vegetables, food, fish, meat, and sometimes some bread, for which we are most appreciative of. I want to give a giant shout out and of thanks to the Vermont Food Bank, especially Ariana Matthews Sullivan for her kind assistance in helping us. Secure three. Three squares were locked. Without airing his assistance, this would not even have been possible. We are forever breaking. I tried to navigate a state made for many months and only received multiple work and rejection letters after returning back to America from teaching overseas for many years. This went on for many months. The data we received back was often incorrect, unfortunately. Our files were mixed up with another family. The paperwork showed additional members living at my house. Only my granddaughter and I have ever lived there. Misspelled names despite completing the paperwork and sending it in multiple times. I would call, be put on hold, transfer, and then the call would drop. I finally resorted to going down to the local office in Burlington to talk to a real person with my three squares file and our IDs. Two folks in the Burlington office, Angel and Denise, were very polite, kind, present and helpful. We had to rely on the local food banks and family to survive. When we returned from overseas until I could receive my social security, it was beyond frustrating and discouraging. I often went to bed hungry at night. I encourage you to think about how to create solutions that work for people, particularly people on fixed incomes like me, to make sure that we can get the food we need and pay our bills. That means fully funding the Three Squares administrative cost so that people who are there to help us apply for the program are well trained, patient, respectful and kind. It means fully funding Vermont Food Bank's requests so that I can use food shelves when I need to. Thank you for your attention and your support of these critical programs that help people like my granddaughter and me. Thank you very much.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Thank you so much, Kathy. Thank you. I just want to send out appreciation to you, because I know it's really hard to share a personal story like that with a room full of strangers and that takes a lot of courage to do that. And I just want to send tremendous thanks to you and to your granddaughters. My

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: wonderful assistant. She'll be flying around. Well, you'll be

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: going to far off places. That's wonderful. Thank you so much for being here.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Thank you. Now we're going

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: to move to an update on immigrant eligibility from Molly Gray and Drukshan Barshaw?

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Barthak, okay. Thank you.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Thank you so much for being here.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Take care.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Welcome.

[Molly Gray, Executive Director, Vermont Afghan Alliance]: Realizing we're maybe their last testimony before lunch. And we're talking about boobs. Thank you so much for having us. My name is Molly Gray. I serve as the executive director of the Milan Afghan Alliance. Dhrushan Farhad, some people call you Dee. Farhad is joining me today. Dhrushan was one of the very first employees at the Alliance, the first Afghan woman to graduate from Norwich University. And today runs our health and wellness program, which is also involved helping folks complete their SNAP applications and then navigating this really challenging period this fall, as this committee well knows. And we did not come with a legal PowerPoint today. Church really knows the complexities of what it is meant to have folks lose SNAP than to try to get reinstated on SNAP, and we want to talk a little bit about some of the challenges there. I just want be clear, we don't lobby. We're apolitical. We're nonpartisan. And thank you for the invitation to provide an update. And then I wanted to speak at the outset and just or shine a light on the population that still doesn't have SNAP access and to make sure that that's really clear for this committee. So as you know, HR1 ended SNAP for anyone who is not a legal permanent resident, green card holder. And then there was this question around, did refugees and asylees have to wait for five years? And thank goodness for this committee and your leadership and everything that was done to help that process get clarified in December. It was clarified that if you have a green card, you don't have to wait for five years. But the concern that we have is around the population of individuals who are asylees or refugees who do not yet have their green cards. And those are really people who have arrived, in most cases, the last five years under the Biden administration. These are Afghans, many, many members of the Afghan community statewide, and then other refugee or Sailee populations. And the concern is that the state implemented HR1, and HR1 made it clear, this population is no longer eligible for three squares per month, started a wind down process. So they gave refugee organizations serving these populations a little bit of money to first provide one percentage of food access, then a smaller percentage, with food access completely ending in January. So this population no longer has access to food through the state of Vermont. Yet the situation for them has not changed. There are still individuals who may have a disability. There are still moms who have kids. There are still individuals who are working one, sometimes two jobs, but still are making enough money to pay the bills and to pay for food, just like any other Vermont family. So we want to flag that because I still think that there's something that could be done to ensure that every Vermonter has access to food, not just those who have a green card. And I think that could be creating some sort of state benefit. I don't know what you call it. Food for all Vermonters program. I don't know what it's called. Making sure in the Three Squares Vermont dropdown menu, I haven't seen the computer system. But can it be paid for out of state dollars rather than federal dollars? So there's no issue with federal funds. So we're concerned about that. And we're also concerned about that because if someone doesn't have access to Three Squares Vermont, they don't have access to any other programs or benefits that use Three Squares Vermont as a qualifying benefit. So Crop Cash, which NOPA has probably testified to you about, which is an incredible program, making sure people can access fresh vegetables or farmers markets. LIHEAP, for example. So the tack on impact is significant. We don't have the answers today on the amount of money. I think that's a question for economic services. I think they could give you the data because they are the ones who pull people off of that benefit. And I will pause there. So I just wanted to flag that. And then we wanted to really talk about just some of the challenges over the last couple of months in getting people reinstated. So this committee is aware of some of the bumps in the road for those who are now reeligible.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I appreciate hearing about that because honestly, what happened didn't need to happen. And that's very frustrating, I can say. Our state government acted precipitously in making decisions that we frankly, in this committee had heard plenty of testimony to understand were wrong. And they were proven wrong and they reverse had them. Thank you for describing what that's been like for people to try to reengage with something that shouldn't have ever been taken away to begin with. Thank you.

[Dhrushan Farhad, Vermont Afghan Alliance]: Thank you so much for having us today. I'm going to talk about some of the challenges or my experiences over the last couple of months with the Economic Service Office. So my understanding of what I have over the past couple of visits I've had for navigating some of the cases for my clients, over 30 visits, I would say, for five different cases, there are some inconsistencies of operations, and my understanding is that the changes in the law, not every single staff or all the staff have been briefed about it, so you hear different things from each staff. Our organization helps with resettling SIV arrivals, Afghan SIVs, as SIV or Special Immigrant Visa holders are people who have worked with American entities in Afghanistan over The US mission in Afghanistan, and they have risked their lives, and it takes a lot for them to get processed, and it takes years for them to get to this point. And upon arrival, they are basically residents or green card holders. They might not have their green cards in hand, but it arrives in the mail. There's no need for adjustment of status. So when we had a couple of families during the time when our state interpreted the law in a certain way, where a lot of the SIVs, all the SIVs were deemed ineligible, it meant our organization had to come up with an emergency solution. So for a short period of time, we were doing something in terms of some funding to very limited funding for the individuals to have some money for food because Three Square was no longer an option. But as soon as we heard that the rules were changed and they were like basically SNAP was reinstated again, I rushed to economic services to get everybody signed up, and I experienced many different interesting things. For the first couple of times, the first two families that I took there, and I made sure to sign the authorized representative form so they could talk to me and I could even be part of the interviews and the entire process. The first time I went in there, almost turned us away because we didn't have a green card in hand. But I was sure about the law that their visa that was on their passport served as a green card, or it had every single information that you would find on a green card. The caseworker was not sure what was going on, and probably one of the very first times when I had to ask for a supervisor. And when the supervisor came, even the supervisor didn't know if it was possible to which I had to call Molly and be like, Molly, they're almost about to turn this away. And then she was like, No, we are right. We know this has to happen. So I had to insist and be like, Is there someone Do you have a supervisor? I need to talk to them. And then there was senior supervisor who was like, Yes, I think we can do it. We have not done it before this way, but we know it's possible. Because they were like, We need an A number or ID. I'm like, It's here. You can find the number here. So I had to consistently push back, and that was exhausting. But then there was another instance where we went to the interview, the client was eligible. Absolutely, she had her green card. And the caseworker said, Well, how long has she had her green card for? Does she meet the five year requirement? I'm like, That has changed. That's no longer necessary. And she said, Okay. But I guess she wasn't sure about it because when the next day I went in, had, basically, they said she's not getting SNAP benefits because she doesn't meet five year, like, having the green card. I'm like, that's wrong. I had to fight back. So it's just like going back and forth because, like, all these, you never know which caseworker, which supervisor you're going to get. Or in another case, when we had done the interview in the past, so when submit an application, if laws change, when you go back, you can go back to the first date that you submitted an But because they thought that she didn't complete the whole process, submitting application and then doing an interview, they were not going to count that, where I had to go back and correct them that she did an interview. In fact, she was there to answer questions, but the caseworker was like, No, the law has changed. You should just probably leave. And then they were like, But if she had completed the interview, I'm like, She did, but you told her not to complete the interview, so I'm gonna hold you for it because this is not right. And it was like every single day, all these visits were for one had more than 30 visits, but it was not for 30 individuals, and that was just five cases that I had to constantly go back and forth to the point where the security guards were just getting familiar with me.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: You're saying hi.

[Dhrushan Farhad, Vermont Afghan Alliance]: Yeah. So I have made friends, and then knowing that which day was a successful day, but it was really hard to know what person you're going to get that day. So I think I would recommend if the DCF could get some training on the changes and get everybody, every staff up to speed and updated about the laws, because I have the time and I was the authorized representative to spend more than thirty hours for five cases, but the clients cannot afford that. And many cases might be eligible and they might be turned away because the person might not need them all.

[Molly Gray, Executive Director, Vermont Afghan Alliance]: And I would also say that we receive state funding to run a health and wellness program and it's not an excellent use of staff time to have to spend that many hours.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Right, for sure. We have time for a couple of questions.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: I'm just wondering, the ESD workers, there's a lot of programs and constantly changing And so I can kind of understand why they might have trouble. I'm wondering if there were specific training positions at least that you all could have the contact information. When you do, in the meantime, while people are being trained up, that might be helpful. So you don't have to spend thirty hours, that you have a contact you know.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Like somebody who is a Right. Particularly since we knew that this was going to be an issue. It it would have made sense instead of doing sort of the that broadcast thing if they had even if you were only able to do it on the phone with somebody or, you know, through a video chat, at least they would have had the specialized training to know what you knew. So you were providing the training to the staff is essentially what was happening. Go ahead. So do you

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: think that something like that might be useful at least in the kind of short term itself?

[Dhrushan Farhad, Vermont Afghan Alliance]: It's hard to say, because when you go, like, I have had some caseworkers where I ask them for certain, to understand the law, and they're like, one I, time I asked the caseworker, and he was like, We have an app for Three Squares, but we don't get the name. And I'm like, If you're a caseworker and you don't get the name for the app that people can use for Three Squares, who gets it? And he said, well, that's a higher level thing. And then when I spoke to some of the supervisors, they were waiting on some staff in Waterbury, Vermont to make some decisions. So sometimes, and they're very of touchy about sharing their email, so they wouldn't share their email even at times. So it was really hard, and sometimes it felt like everyone sort of waited for someone else who was not at reach. At least that's what I gathered. Yes, they were very kind and they were nice about it, but there was a sense of helplessness, which seemed like everyone kind of was like it was out of their hand.

[Molly Gray, Executive Director, Vermont Afghan Alliance]: There was a specific lack of willingness to I said the supervisor, said, Can I have your email? I'm going to send you over the USDA guidance and make sure you have because I was like, It sounds like that has not been communicated. But I would say that I was not comfortable. It's an area of I think, hopefully, it will be resolved. But it's just it has not been an easy process, certainly.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: And then my one other question is my understanding for this group that got their benefits reinstated is that when they were kind of going through the process to get re enrolled, they counted these month or two of funds that organizations like yourself Oh, income. Yeah. Were providing as this stop yet measure as kind of ongoing income, which So then brings down the amount of their monthly that's happened, and that's something Folks are still We

[Molly Gray, Executive Director, Vermont Afghan Alliance]: didn't know how long this process was going to go on, where people were going to be in this gray zone of not knowing whether they were eligible. And so we were providing biweekly payments. And also, it's like running a SNAP program through our organization while working to provide people housing and employment. And just a reminder, for new arrivals, SNAP is like a ninety day support until someone gets a job and then they're off. This isn't a long term process. It is a longer term benefit for moms with kids and individuals just like anybody else who's on SNAP who has a qualifying economic experience. And I just wanted to just shine a light on one more point that I think is really important right now. I'm sure everyone on this committee has been watching what happened in Minneapolis and also Maine. And the target of those operations is really around Operation Paris, P A R R I S, this effort by the Trump administration to re vet or reevaluate refugees and asylees who came in under the Biden administration. And that is the same population that in Vermont has lost SNAP benefit. And these are Afghan veterans and allies. These are people who risk their lives for our government. So not only are they losing, they've lost their food security, but they're deeply concerned for their safety here in the state. And so it's just like the state is piling on something that shouldn't, in my view, food should not be a security concern right now. Vermont made a choice to welcome refugees and asylees to resettle them. They're our newest neighbors. And so it's just overlap with the immigration concerns that we

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: have that are quite significant. It's very unsafe. Yeah, exactly. I totally understand that. Totally understand that. And I'm proud of what our committee did to try to take action when we knew it was the right thing to do. And we knew that what was happening at the state level was not the correct thing. And in the end, whoever the legal powers were that made that happen at the federal level, we're grateful, but not grateful that people had to go through all of the and are still going through all of the issues that they're going through, especially when it didn't have to be that way. So thank you both for being here this afternoon. We really appreciate it. And thank you for what you're doing to help other folks

[Deputy Commissioner Gray, Department for Children and Families (DCF)]: out there.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: It's Doug's first time testifying.

[Rep. Eric Maguire]: Thank

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: you so much. Thank you. Alrighty. And thank you, committee, for staying a few extra minutes to hear testimony. And I apologize for my lack of

[Lily, Director, Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)]: agenda. Okay.

[Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: We're off till